Feral
by shine4u
Summary: He didn't know who he was or where he was. All he knew was that up there was light and pain, and down here in the sewers was dark and safe... Disclaimer: I own nothing. please R&R WARNING: mild slash
1. In Terms Of A Plan?

Disclaimer: While I wish that I own Buffy and Angel I do not. All of the characters belong to the one and only Joss Whedon

The four of them stood in they ally-way facing a swarm of demons. "In terms of a plan?" Spike yelled as the thunder grew louder and the rain continued to soak him and his comrades. He knew he had nothing to worry about. Angel always had a plan. He wouldn't admit it out loud, but he did like the way Angel always had a strategy for everything he did. Unlike himself who would leap into any battle no matter how pointless or how badly the odds were against him. That made it all the more fun. However, there were a few times when he wished he had been better at planning: Attempting to kill Buffy when he first met her; just so he could add another slayer to his legacy, the gem of Amara; to be completely fair that plan had been perfectly laid out, he just hadn't counted on Harmony. Coming to LA to reclaim the gem from Angel. That one had been beautifully laid out, but because of his short attention span it had quickly fizzled out especially with that backstabbing Marcus involved. Bloody hell.

So he wasn't the best at making plans and sticking to them, but this was one of Angel's strong suits. Spike knew without a doubt that Angel was going to tell them the plan, they'd follow it and in a few hours they would be out of there. The dragon Spike was staring at gave a loud screech. Ok, maybe a day or two, there were a lot of demons in front of them. _'Charlie boy might not make it'_ he thought regretfully as he looked over at angel and caught a glimpse of Gunn barely standing and clutching his wound.

"We fight" Angel said calmly never taking his eyes off of the demons in front of them.

Spike couldn't believe that that was it. He had to be joking. "Bit more Specific" he yelled again as thunder shook the ally.

"Well, personally, I kind of want to slay the dragon" Angel said while stepping forward and raising his sword.

'_Bloody ponce! If he thinks I'm gonna stand here and let him kill the damn dragon he's got another thought commin' I'll feed him to it. Yeah, that's it. I'll feed him to the damn dragon and as it's about to reach down and eat his proxy ass I'll kill it and he will eternally be in my debt and I will finally get the respect I bloody well deserve! Saved the world before didn't I. Well I'm just going to have to do it again!'_

"Let's go to work." Angel said as he lunged towards the demons, Spike close on his heels. Illyria soared into the sky and began killing any airborne demons-save the dragon. To Spike the fight was bloody and exhilarating. It was every bit the brawl he had been itching fore since he became corporeal again, the fight with Angel over the cup just didn't compare that was just letting off a little steam. An hour into the fight Gunn was attacked by a swarm of vampires, he killed as many as he could, but there were too many of them. Spike tried to get to him in time, but was delayed by a family of slime demons. Once free he quickly ran to Guns' side, he found him crumpled on the floor: bloodless. He made quick work of the remaining vampires. Soon he was surrounded by dust blowing in the storm. He carried Gunn over to the side of the ally. He considered it a 'safe' place because no one was there fighting. He hoped Gunn's body would not be mutilated as he continued to fight. He wanted to give the kid a proper burial.

Three more hours passed and Spike had lost count of how many demons he'd killed. He searched the sky for Illyria and found she wasn't doing that bad herself. Although he did notice her pulsing a bright blue color every now and then. As he spotted another gang of vampires that needed dusting he heard a strangled cry from behind him. Angel was on the floor trying desperately hard to escape the dragon. The dragon took a few steps closer and tried to take a bite out of him, but Angel rolled over just in time to be missed by the teeth. _'Oh no you don't. If anyone's killing the poof it's gonna be me!'_ Spike ran to Angel's side. To his right he found the remains of a demon and he ripped its head off and threw it at the dragon. "Over here you stupid lizard!" he bellowed as the dragon looked around.

The dragon looked uninterested and turned its attention back to Angel. This time Spike threw an arm at it and then lunged for the back of it's neck. He held on for dear unlife as the creature thrashed its head back and forth. With Spike distracting the dragon Angel was able to stand and recompose himself before he got ready to fight again. He watched as Spike managed to punch out one of the dragon's eyes before he was thrown off. Spike was back on his feet in a matter of seconds. He watched as Angel ran towards the dragon, but before he could attack the dragon took off and flew over to Spike.

The dragon circled Spikes head, pondering from where it should attack. Once overhead it swooped down. Spike dodged out of the way but the back of his head collided with one of the dragon's hands and he went flying across the field. "Spike!" Angel yelled into the distance, but there was no reply. In a rage Angel picked up his sword and lunged for the creature once again. This time he managed to slice off the creatures tail. He was covered in blood. Furious, the creature charged at Angel. He swung his sword a few times ant it clashed with the dragon's teeth. The dragon thrashed its head wildly and the sword flew from Angel's hands. It quickly closed in on Angel. As it lifted it's head preparing to deliver a fatal blow, both it and Angel were distracted by a high pitched agonized screech.

Spike looked up from where he was lying on the floor and saw that Illyria was pulsating between her regular shade of blue and a blinding one. As he realized what was going on she exploded into a tidal wave of power. Both the dragon and angel were thrown in opposite directions. Angel landed back in the alley and the dragon landed on top of Spike. He struggled to get free; as the dragon had started to deteriorate and it's acidic remains began to burn his flesh. Finally after half an hour he managed to free himself, shakily he stood up, but as soon as he started to move he slipped in demon slime and hit his head on a fire hydrant. Everything went black.


	2. Alone

Disclaimer: Still Don't Own

The sun was rising over the crater that used to be Wolfram and Heart. The smell of sunrise quickly woke Angel and he struggled to his feet. He looked around for Spike, anxious to find him before the sun fully rose, but he didn't see anyone. All around him were bodies of decaying demons and crumbled buildings. "Spike!" he yelled into the distance. When he got no reply he tried again "Spike! Where are you?" The sun was now peeking up over the horizon and Angel didn't have much time. He turned around and ran into the shadows to the Hyperion. Maybe Spike had woken up before he had and was now hiding there waiting for sunset he thought. Honestly he didn't know why he was so worried about the younger vampire. With him gone Angel could finally get some peace.

He made it into the doors of the hotel just as his jacket started to smoke. "Spike are you in here?" he yelled, only his echo replied. He tried sniffing out the blond, but there was no use. Spike had never been to the Hyperion before and he wasn't there now. There was no trace of him anywhere. No hint of smoke, no fresh mess. The only things in the hotel now -other than Angel- were a bunch of rats and roaches.

He walked over to his old office. Everything was still in place, with the exception of the amount of dust it looked like they had never left. Like he hadn't killed his only son, metaphorically sold his soul to the devil to agreed to run Wolfram and Hart, then literally sell his soul to a pack of devils in exchange for his hope and his friends lives. All of his friends were gone now.

Doyle had been the first soldier down. He sacrificed his own life so that Angel would keep fighting the 'good fight'. He believed in Angel and that he would do good, keep fighting and still be a champion for the powers. And Angel had vowed to honor Doyle's memory. And how had he done that? By giving in to the senior partners, by completely ignoring the helpless only to make life easier for many of Wolfram and Hearts sleazy clients. Not to mention demons. Then there was Cordelia. The woman he had grown to love. After Buffy, he promised to de everything he could to protect the ones he loved, even if it meant protecting them from him. But he couldn't. He couldn't protect Cordy from the powers or fate that had set them on the track that descended down this slippery slope leading to his own personal hell. She was another one that gave up everything she had to make sure he kept fighting. _She_ gave him _her_ visions to make sure _he_ was on the right track and that ultimately _he_ would do the right thing. And he had done the right thing. Killing the members of the Black Thorne was the right thing to do. It showed the senior partners that they didn't own him or any member of his crew. It just came at a high price.

Then there was Fred. The sweet girl that should have never been involved in any of this. Everyone else had reasons. Doyle was looking for atonement (much like himself), Cordelia already knew too much not to be involved (going to school on a Hellmouth will do that to a person). Wesley was a watcher, he was already predisposed, and Gunn had been hunting vampires his whole life. But Fred… she was innocent. Her only mistake was being accepted into UCLA and opening the wrong book in a library. She didn't deserve to be hollowed out and used as a shell for Illyria.

Then there was Wesley who sacrificed everything he believed in to ensure that Angel wouldn't spend the rest of his un-life haunted by a prophecy. Unfortunately the prophecy had been fake and he had never been able to fully recover from the darkness in his soul that was left after he betrayed his friends. It didn't help that Angel had tried to kill him without giving him a chance to explain. Loosing Fred had also destroyed him, and he was never the same after everyone got their memories back. At least there was one good thing that came from his deal with Wolfram and Hart: Connor did get a chance to be a well-adjusted kid.

Angel doubted that Gunn had made it out alive. He had a serious wound going into the battle and Angel could smell all of the blood leaving his body in waves. He had been another victim of circumstance. Both of his parents were killed by vampires, he was forced to stake his own sister. Angel believed that the young man never got over that, that he always carried it around with him like a shadow. It didn't help that he was tricked into killing Fred. He could always see in the young mans face the haunted look of a man whose made a few bad choices and they cost him the people he loved.

At least Angel knew that Lorne was all right. Well not 'all right' but most likely alive and whole. However, he did know that Lorne would never forgive him for making him kill Lindsey. In his heart he believed that Lorne had kept his promise and killed Lindsey. Angel didn't believe the lawyer would have survived the fight anyway, but he didn't trust him to fully fight on his side. Lorne must have known that too. But asking him to do this one thing had cost him his friendship. Now Angel just had to learn how to live with it.

Angel began to accept the fact that Spike was gone. Maybe he had been dusted when Illyria blew up, maybe he got out before he had woken up and was now on his way to Europe, or maybe… Angel hated to think about this, but maybe he had still been in the field when he had awoken and didn't hear Angel calling for him… if that were true then the younger vampire was definitely dust now. The thought made Angel sad. Spike was his last remaining family member. Darla had staked herself giving birth to Connor and who knew where Dru was. He had come to view Spike as an equal, especially after seeing how badly the younger vampire wanted the cup of eternal torment.

Spike always had Angels back, even in the early years. He was always ready to jump into a fight at a moments notice. At the time Angelus had believed it was out of some kind of loyalty he felt. But now Angel understood, he just liked to fight. Thru the years he knew he could always count on Spike, even if it meant allowing him to run a sword thru his chest to kill a bug on his back. He laughed at the memory, ignoring the rats, he went upstairs to his old room to get some sleep and wait for sunset, when he would go back outside and face the aftermath of his choices.


	3. Help Me

AN: I know it's short, but the next one will be longer. Promise :D

The sun was rising; he could smell it. Spike groaned as he also smelled his skin begin to smoke. _'I need to get out of here'_ he thought as he struggled to free himself of the dragons' carcass. Part of the dragons shoulder was crushing his left hand. He managed to pull it out and tried to ignore the fact that it was broken. Noticing a strong smell of blood and a throbbing in his head, he used his free hand to check the area the pain was coming from. When his hand made contact, he screamed as the pain caused his eyes to water and him to gasp for unneeded breath. He continued to struggle until he freed the upper half of his body. While twisting to free his lower half he heard a loud 'crack' as white-hot pain seared thru his body. He had dislocated his hip. Frantically he continued to struggle and pull his way out while ignoring the pain that intensified by the second. He had to get out of there before the sun was fully overhead and he would be dust.

Finally he freed himself from the dragon and began to limp/ crawl his way towards the ally. His steps were unsteady and he swayed as he struggled to stay upright. _'Need to find Angel… need help'. _Once in the ally he saw Gun's body lying where he had left it before Illyria had exploded into a tidel wave of power. It was ashen and bloodless. The sight of it almost made Spike vomit. He held it in; he didn't have the luxury of time to be ill, he needed to save himself before he could come back for his friend and give him a proper burial. Here-surrounded by the remains of slime demons- was not a resting place for champions. He was running out of time, smoke was coming off of him in waves, it was like he was walking in a cloud of his own burning flesh. His skin had begun to blacken.

He hobbled deeper into the ally. His unsteady footsteps made it hard for him to keep his balance. He slipped in the remains of a slime demon and in the process twisted his ankle. He refused to be defeated. He was going to make it out of the ally if it killed him! _'I will NOT die in this ally! I am William the Bloody. I am a badass vampire and I will NOT let a dislocated hip and a broken foot defeat me. I just need to get out of here and find Angel, he can help me."_

Spike could smell Angel, so he knew the older vampire had recently been in the ally. He tried to follow the scent and find a place to hide until nightfall. He knew he wasn't going to get help any time didn't have enough time to find Angel, but he did have enough time to find a hiding place as long as he found one soon.

He made his way out of the alley and kept to the shadows. While keeping close to the brick wall Spike noticed that the windows were all boarded up. It would be the perfect place to hide and wade out the daylight. He ran down the stairs that lead to the basement. Since the place seemed to be abandoned there would be no need for him to be invited in. As he reached for the handle he let out a strangled scream. A rope had appeared around his neck and he was being pulled backwards into the daylight. As he fell backwards his head hit a few of the stairs. Before he blacked out he head his captor say: "Hostile 17 is contained."

Riley Finn and the rest of his unit covered Spike in a tarp and dragged him to the new Initiative base. There they placed a shock collar around his neck, re-chipped him, and threw him unceremoniously into a glass cage. "So this is 'hostile 17'?" agent Peters asked as the glass door of the cell slid closed.

"Yes, that's him." Riley said as he turned around to look at his unit. The five men stood there Riley ordered his unit to clear out then entered Spikes cell. As he stared at the unconscious vampire, he was hit with a sudden rush of rage, and began kicking Spike repeatedly in the stomach.


	4. LA Branched Initiative

Once Riley had finished releasing his rage on the blind vampire, he calmly left the glass cage, closed the door and headed down to the basement. This L.A based Initiative was bigger than the last one in Sunnydale. It had three levels and a secret basement that only Riley had access to. On each level there were different classes of daemons. The bottom floor was for the lowest class of demons; the ones with weak powers. The middle floor was for the more powerful demons; currently it was being occupied by all the captured vampires-except one. The top level was for the most powerful demons captured. It had the highest level of security, and some of the men had managed to chip a few of the demons and they were now being used as security. Riley had faith in the new behavior modifying chips; he had spent the majority of the last three years designing them himself. There was no way that these chips could malfunction and the demons were permanently under the Initiatives control. Riley had secured more resources to prevent tragedies like the one that happened four years ago from happening again. He had also booby-trapped every possible exit so no hostiles could escape.

Riley's own personal quarters were in the basement. There he had a bed, refrigerator, television, and library. His library was more like a six-foot bookshelf full of demon guides. The other agents lived in houses less than two miles away from head quarters. Riley had chosen to live at HQ because now that he was in charge it was easier for him to deal with a crisis as soon as it arrived. Like the other evening when his monitors had picked up higher levels of paranormal activity coming from that law firm he and his men were still unable to penetrate. By the time he had gathered the alpha team, devised a plan of attack and made it to the scene, there had been a blast of energy that had knocked them all out. By the time they had come to there was nothing left but carnage. Well carnage and one blond vampire.

As Riley walked into his room he was hit with a sudden thought. He quickly grabbed his walkie-talkie and called Peters. "Agent Peters. Come in. Over."

"Yes agent Finn." Came Peter's calm voice in a questioning tone. He waited a while for a response and then said "Over."

"Are you alone? Over"

"At the moment? No. Over"

Riley could hear a woman with the agent and decided to put on his most threatening tone. "Well agent, I suggest you quickly become unengaged and get your ass down here; to my quarters NOW. Over and out." It took less than ten minutes for there to be a knock on his door. "Come in Peters." Riley ordered.

"You wanted to see me sir?" Peters asked as his shoulders tensed and he stood at attention.

"Stand down soldier." Riley ordered as he walked over to the other man. He walked right past him and grabbed two beers from the fridge. After tossing one to Peters he opened his and took a seat at his desk. He gestured for Peters to also take a seat. "You remember the hostile we brought in this morning?" Riley asked casually.

" Hostile 17 sir?"

"That's the one," he said as he finished his beer. He looked over and noticed that Peters hadn't taken a sip of his yet.

"What about him sir?"

"He and I have a bit of a history, and I would appreciate it if you would relocate him for me." It wasn't a question.

"Sir?" Peters asked skeptically. Agent Finn had never asked for a hostile to be relocated before.

Riley stared at him. "Is there a problem agent?"

"N-no sir" he stammered. "It's just… well where would you want me to relocate him to? He's already on the third floor under the highest level of security…"

"I thought it would be obvious." He said while casually looking around his room.

"Oh, you… you want me to bring the HST here? Why? If you don't mind me asking"

"Actually I DO mind you asking. Bring the HST to me NOW, no questions and no telling anyone what you are doing or why. I order you to keep your mouth shut."

"But sir, what do I do if someone asks about the HST he is under maximum security."

"Just leave a pile of dust in the cage and tell everyone one of the guards had to stake him."

"But which gu-"

"Just bring the HST to me and do as I say. Then once you are done you WILL forget everything that has happened! That's an order Agent. You're dismissed." Riley didn't have time to argue, he had a plan and in order for it to work he would need Spike in his room as soon as possible.

"Sir, yes sir!" he shouted and saluted Riley before he left the quarters.

He ran up the stairs as fast as he could until he reached the third floor. He passed several demon guards as he ran to the end of the corridor to the HST's cage. He was disappointed to find that hostile 17 was awake and cowering in the corner. '_This would be so much easier if it was still unconscious'_ he thought as he used his keycard to enter the cage. As soon as he entered the hostile cowered even closer in the corner, almost as if it were trying to make itself as small as possible. Its bleached blond hair poked out of its ruined black leather jacket.

As he got closer he began to notice the hostiles behavior. It didn't seem like much of a threat. It was cowering in the wall, cradling its left hand, and growling lowly. He closed in on the hostile and it whimpered as it tried to crawl away, one hand dragging the rest of its body. _'Oh this is pathetic'_ he thought as he grabbed his stun gun and aimed for its back. It let out a yelp as it crumpled to the floor and began twitching uncontrollably.

Riley watched the security cameras screen on his laptop as Peters dragged Spike out of the cage and left the emptied containments of a jar of dust in his place. In the other screen he had the chip information of one of the guards on the floor. He programmed in a false memory of Spike getting violent and thrashing against the cage door. Then the demon came over and staked him. He had just finished erasing any trace of Peters with Spike from the security tapes when there was a knock on his door. It was Peters.

"Here's the HST sir." Peters said as Riley let him in the room. He threw the HST into the room and waited for further instruction.

"Very good Peters. Now go." He said while never taking his eyes off of Spike. As Peters opened the door to leave Riley reminded him: "Remember Peters, nothing happened, and as far as you are concerned: there never was a hostile 17"

"Sir, yes sir." He said as he left.

Riley kicked spike a few more times then walked over to his bookshelf. He browsed the many titles until he found a tattered book entitles _Demons 101_ he slightly tilted it backwards then stood back as the bookshelf began to move to the side revealing a separate room with a metal cage, chains and various torture devices. He went into the room, unlocked the cage and set up the chains. He then went back to his room picked Spike up off the floor and dragged him into the cage. He stripped off Spikes clothes and chained him to the wall.


	5. They're Just Dreams Right?

A/N as Usual I own nothing

Wherever he was; it was dark. Except for a bright light in the distance that illuminated a metal cage. Looking around he saw two figures in the distance. The smaller one was somewhat hidden in the shadows, the clattering that occurred every time the smaller figure moved suggested that he was chained up to the wall. The other one was holding an object that repeatedly reflected the light while he shuffled it between his hands. The bigger man seemed to be saying something, but Angel couldn't figure out what. He tried to get closer so he could hear whatever was being said. He had a bad feeling about this.

He got close enough that he was just outside of the light. Neither of the figures had heard him approach. Come to think of it, he hadn't even heard himself approach the cage. _'Makes me wonder if I'm even here'_ he thought as he continued to hide in the shadows. Angel looked closer and noticed that the faces of both men in the room were blurred. The bigger one was holding a knife and appeared to be yelling at the smaller. Although Angel still could not hear what he was saying. Realizing that it was pointless to eavesdrop he tore his attention away from the man with the knife and focused it on what he could see of the man chained to the wall. There was something eerily familiar about his build. He vaguely recognized the toned forearms and biceps, the porcelain skin and the perfectly sculpted chest. But he couldn't place name or face to what he could see of the body.

Angel also vaguely recognized the captor; he seemed to be wearing military gear. Everything seemed to be so foggy. Why wasn't his brain working? His eyes followed the captor as he began to pace back and forth. All the while still yelling at the victim. His movements became more agitated and he kept swinging the knife around like it was a baseball bat and he was hitting invisible balls. The victim didn't seem to be responding. It didn't seem like he was yelling or anything, Angel only heard one distinct pattern of sound. Suddenly the captor stopped in front of the chained man. It appeared that he either whispered something in his victim's ear or he was speaking in one of those 'low-deadly-calm' voices. The knife was brought up to the side of the victims face and Angel could hear another set of sounds. He couldn't tell if the victim was talking or not but the sound chilled him to his core, like someone had taken ice water and poured it onto his soul.

The sound seemed to agitate the captor, he pressed the knife harder into the victims' cheek- there was that sound again- and in one swift moment the captors' arm was down. It took a few moments for Angel to realize what had happened. The captor had cut the victims cheek. Judging by the rate the blood flowed from the cut onto the porcelain skin it was deep. Angel turned his head as he began to think of ways he could help the person chained to the wall. He quickly looked back as he heard frantic clattering of chains as the victim uselessly struggled to free himself from the chains as the captor picked up the knife again and started stabbing him in the gut. Angel couldn't smell the blood but he saw the pool that had started to form at the victims' feet. But the captor didn't stop there; he calmly walked out of the cage and to the edge of –what Angel could only assume to be- the basement. He peered his head into the light to try and get a glimpse of what the captor was doing, but it was no use. He didn't know whether or not he would or could be spotted if he went into the light, and he had to think of some way he could help the poor man chained to the wall. The man in black came back into view with a long metal object in hand. The base of the object was the regular gray color while the tip was pulsing white. He walked back into the cage and calmly began talking to his victim once again. Noticing the hot poker the victim once again attempted an unsuccessful escape. Angel watched in horror as the man in black pulled his arm back and then lunged it straight into the victims' chest.

Angel awoke with a start. If his heart were still beating then it would have threatened to jump out of his chest. At first he was disoriented. _'Where am I? What happened to the basement? Where __**was**__ the basement? And who were those people?'_ after he calmed down a bit he realized that he was alone in his room in the Hyperion. He groggily got out of bed, the sun was setting and he needed to see what remained of the fight. Slowly he put his clothes back on and headed out the door. As his hand reached the handle he stopped for a moment. _'Had it all been a dream? Or was it a vision? Am I supposed to be heading out to help someone right now?' _Angel thought about it. Had the powers sent him a vision? Was there really some lost soul out there that needed his help? … And by the looks of the dream that person badly needed his help. The more he thought about it the more he realized that it was only a dream. The powers had given up on him a long time ago… more like screwed him. They took Cordy from him, violated her memory, then her body by impregnating her with Jasmine the hell goddess. It's because of them he lost all of his friends… and Spike. So no, it couldn't have been a vision sent by the powers. It had to be some random nightmare. A random nightmare with eerily familiar looking people… even though he couldn't see their faces or hear what was being said.

He quietly left the hotel and headed back to the alley. Once he got there all he saw were craters and carnage. He sifted thru to see if he could find any sign of Spike or Gunn. In all honesty he knew Gunn was dead. There was no way he could have survived the battle, and even if he had there was no way he would have been well enough to make it out of the ally or wait eighteen hours for Angel to come and get him. As for Spike… in Angel's heart of hearts he knew the annoying vampire **had** to be alive. Spike had too much heart to be taken out in a fight, and even though he and Spike were never intimate (well… except for maybe that one time), they were still close. They were friends and Spike was still part of his family so if the younger vampire had dusted Angel was sure he would have felt it.

And up to this moment there had been no heart-stopping pull like the one he had felt the time Buffy died… twice, or the gut wrenching jerk he had felt when Darla died… all three times, or the gut punch he had felt when Spike had died last year. Nothing like that had happened to him in the past twenty-four hours. So therefore Spike had to be alive. In a way the knowledge that Spike hadn't been dusted in battle was a comfort for him. It meant he wasn't alone anymore. The only problem was: he didn't know where to find the blond vampire. The last thing he remembered was the dragon falling on top of spike.

Angel looked around in the distance he saw the body of the dragon. He ran over to it thinking Spike might still be under it. It would have been possible for the younger vampire to survive if he was stuck underneath the dragon's body. The dragon was big enough to completely shade Spike for a full day. Angel looked at the dragon carcass and found no signs of Spike anywhere near it. It was obvious that he had been there because Angel could smell him.

He began circling the body for clues. He started with the bottom. The majority of the dragon's talons had all fallen off; Angel assumed it was the result of impact. There was blue blood surrounding the body and it seemed that one of the wings was broken. As he reached the head he picked up on a stronger, familiar smell: blood. It wasn't just any blood he smelled; it was Spikes. Angel should know; he probably made it spill more times than anyone else in Spikes unlife. Upon inspecting the area he noticed that there was a large pool of Spikes blood and it trailed to the ally Angel had woken up in. _'Maybe Spike's hurt and he needs help.'_ Angel worried as he began to run to the alley. "Spike!" he yelled. "Spike where are you?" he ran into the ally careful to avoid the carnage and checking all of the corners where Spike could be hiding. Seeing no sign of him, he decided to follow the scent.

He followed Spikes scent to another alley and down some stairs. In the middle of the stairwell he noticed another bloodstain that he could only guess could have come from Spikes head. _'He must have come looking for me… this place isn't far from the hotel.'_ Angel thought as he inspected the stairwell. _'He must have lost his balance, fallen down and hit his head.'_ Angel moved towards the door and threw it open. "Spike?" he asked as he entered. This place had obviously been abandoned. "Are you ok? …Are you in here?"

It was obvious to Angel that Spike had not been there. The place looked undisturbed and there was no trace of his scent anywhere. He went back out the door and realized that's where Spikes scent had vanished. _'That's strange… he must have doubled back or something'_ but Angel thought about it, if Spike had woken up around the same time he had, there wouldn't have been any time to double back, he would have been dust by the time he made it back to the dragon. There had to be an explanation for why his scent vanished into thin air. Angel refused to believe that Spike was dust.

On the way back to the hotel a thought struck Angel. Maybe Spike had hid someplace else, waited till sunset and was now on his way to Rome. With that thought in his head Angel hurried to the hotel so he could make a call.

_Ring…ring_

"Come on pick up!" Angel willed someone to answer.

_Ring…ring_

"_Heeeelllo"_ came the reply.

"Andrew! Its Angel."

"_Uh, hi… Buffy isn't h-"_

"This isn't about Buffy." Angel cut him off.

"_Oh. Well then why did you call?"_

"I need to know if you've heard from Spike lately"

"_Uhm… not since last month when the two of you were here all 'where's Buffy, she must be possessed or something'. Yeah other than that I haven't heard much from him… why is everything okay?"_

Angel was deflated. "Yeah Andrew… everything is fine." With that he hung up the phone. _'This makes no sense… I would have __**felt**__ Spike dust (he __**is**__ family after all). I should have felt something. He has to still be out there hurt and probably looking for me unless… unless that jolt I felt this morning after I woke up from that nightmare was really him getting dusted." _Angel dragged himself away from the office and began to slowly walk up the stairs to his room_._ He couldn't believe that Spike was really gone.


	6. HST 17 2

He was back in the basement. This time he risked stepping out of the shadows so he could get a better view. No one seemed to notice him. This situation looked like the last time he was here. Except the victim was no longer chained to the wall. He was cowering in a corner while the captor towered over him. Again Angel could not see any faces or hear any voices. He decided to look around for clues. As he was examining the devices in the basement (chains, whips, sledge hammers, various knives…) he was stopped short when he heard _**that**_ sound again. He slowly turned around and saw the captor forcefully kick the victim repeatedly in the stomach. The victim spit up blood. He was kicked again as he struggled to get on his knees, then the captor grabbed him by his hair and threw him to the other side of the bars. He appeared to have shouted something while pointing to something on the floor.

The pale man dragged himself over to where the taller figure had pointed. Angel realized that he had pointed at a pile of clothes on the floor. He picked them up and began to slowly dress himself. Again Angel had an eerily familiar feeling as he looked at the clothes the man had put on. Angel was beginning to get really frustrated with his inability to clearly see, or hear anything and the feeling like he knew these people at some time in his life or unlife. He punched the wall in frustration. When he didn't feel anything he understood that he wasn't really here and this was just an annoying dream. He wished he would wake up already. He didn't understand why he kept dreaming about these people.

The darker man walked out of the cage and thru the back door Angel had hovered around the last time he was here. After a while the pale man-now dressed in a black shirt and jeans- slowly followed him out. Angel noticed that instead of walking upright he preferred to be crouched over on all fours. One of his arms was broken, and he had an awkward gate, almost like his hip was dislocated and his captor hadn't tried to fix it. He decided to follow, there was no use staying in this part of the basement if there was nothing for him to see. Also he was worried about the smaller man and wondered what his captor was going to do to him this time.

He fallowed the wounded man out to what looked like a bedroom. As soon as they were both out he noticed a bookshelf slide over and cover the doorway. _'Okay… that was wired… and oddly cliché."_ Angel thought as he watched the pale man cower into yet another corner. The man in black had started yelling at him again. He continued to cower. It appeared that the man in black had gotten more frustrated and angrily walked over to the computer on his desk. Curious now, Angel stood behind the man in black. He peered over his shoulder and saw him open a folder labeled: 'HST-17-2'. Once the file was opened a page full of random letters, symbols, and numbers appeared. It was encrypted. The man scrolled down the page and under the section entitled: commands he wrote: "Obey A.R.F".

The man stood up again and walked over to the one cowering in a corner. He tried to run (more like wobble) away. Angel heard a strongly muted sound (like he was under water trying to hear a conversation happening above the surface) and noticed that the wounded man had stopped trying to escape and crawled on top of the bed. There he lay facedown on the mattress. Angel watched in fascination. What had happened to make him change his mind about escaping? Why had he gotten on top of the bed? He watched as the mad in black began to disrobe. The man on the bed was trembling badly. He heard the muted sound again and suddenly the man on the bed stopped trembling and he too began to disrobe. A task that appeared to be difficult because with the addition of the dislocated hip, one of his hands was broken. He wondered why he hadn't noticed when just three minutes ago he had watched him dress. Once he was completely naked he laid back down on the mattress. When the taller man mounted the bed he tried again to escape. Once again Angel heard the sound and the smaller man abruptly stopped moving. And laid still. He watched in horror as the taller man mounted the smaller one and began to thrust in forcefully. For the second time that day Angel heard the same sound he heard the last time he had this dream. The one that made him feel like ice water was being thrown onto his soul. The taller man heard this and lifted his fist and punched him hard in the face.

For the second time that week Angel woke with a start. He tried to piece together the fragmented parts of the dream. The things he actually could see, the parts he remembered. He decided to write it down. There _**had**_ to be a reason why he kept having dreams about these people. He grabbed a piece of paper from the top drawer in his bedside table and fished around for a pen. Once he had both in hand he turned on the light and began to write down what he had seen. But what _**had**_ he seen? He couldn't make out any of the faces, he had no clue where that basement was, and he couldn't hear any of the voices. He shuddered as a memory of the whimper crossed his mind.

He stared blankly at the page for a bit until he wrote down the only two things he remembered from the dream. The only two things he had clearly seen. _'HST-17-2'_ and _'Obey A.R.F_. It had all been so surreal. What was a HST-172? Was it code for something? Was it a combination? Were the Powers telling him that there was a lock he had to find and that entering 'HST-17-2' was the only way to open it and find out what's inside? And what was A.R.F… more like _**who**_ was A.R.F? It had to be the man in black. That was the only thing that could make sense. A.R.F had typed in a command on a computer program, and the smaller man had in deed obeyed. The more Angel thought about it, the more likely it seemed that he was correct. The smaller man had done things that annoyed A.R.F and he had ordered him to stop. Or he ordered him to get on the bed and… Angel didn't want to think about it. Had the smaller man been a robot? Had the powers sent him these dreams to tell him to go out and save a robot from being abused? No, the smaller man hadn't have been a robot. Robots don't bleed. And the Powers hadn't sent him these visions… or dreams… or whatever they are. The Powers didn't believe in him any more, and why should they? He had turned his back on them once he agreed to run Wolfram and Heart, and his arrogance had gotten all his friends killed.

With a heavy sigh Angel put the pen and paper back in the drawer and headed to the bathroom to shower. Once he was done he dressed quickly and went set out to go help the helpless. After all what else was he going to do?

Riley woke to the sounds of whimpering coming from the space next to him on the bed. "Shut up!" he ordered and it stopped at once. He liked the new behavior modifying chips. He had designed them himself, and had added the special 'command' and 'memory' sections to the programming for occasions just like this. Ever since he had gone back to Sunnydale and found out that Buffy was in a relationship with Spike, he knew he had to get his revenge. After all it was Spike's fault that Buffy didn't love him anymore. Sure he had shown up with Sam (a relationship that ended as quickly as it had started) and introduced her as his wife, but deep down he was still in love with Buffy. So when he walked in on Buffy and Spike sleeping together it infuriated him. He didn't see how Buffy could choose this _thing_ over him. So after he left he made it a point to track Spike whit his chip.

It had worked. For the next year and a half Riley knew exactly where Spike was at all times. But then one day (a little over a year ago) he had been careless. He was in his room at the base, which was soon to be his very own Los Angeles branch of the Initiative, when Peters came in and startled him. He had asked him what he was up to and in a haste to close all of the screens and hide his activities, he accidentally spilled coffee on his laptop. Causing it to short circuit which in turn caused the chip to short circuit. He had seen that Spike was at Buffy's house and knew it would not be long before she would ask the Initiative to remove it. By the end of that day Spike had been de-chipped and Riley had to find another way to keep track of him, and plan his revenge.

At first it hadn't been easy. He had no idea how to track Spike without the chip, but then a few months ago he had gotten word of a vigilante with bleach blond hair and a leather jacket patrolling the streets at night. He decided to check it out for himself; he had staged a damsel in distress scenario and released a recently captured hostile on some random woman. He had hid in the shadows as he watched Spike dust the vampire and at first try to ignore the woman. By the time the woman was running away from him and he heard Spike yell after her a rude comment about not accepting candy from strange men in vans, Riley knew it was Spike. Then he heard a man mention something about Angel, and he knew he had to stay out of his way because he didn't want a repeat of the last time he had fought Angel.

So Riley waited it out, because he knew that sooner or later Spike would do something stupid that would lead to him being captured. Then about three days ago the Initiative was shocked when the monitors picked up extra high levels of paranormal activity coming from the business district. By the time he had gotten troops together to assess the situation the battle had been over. He and the alpha team had swept the area and there they had found him. He could barely walk, his head was bleeding and there was a large amount of smoke coming off of him. When they captured him the back of his head had hit the steps behind him as he fell. Riley was a little bit concerned because for the past two days this creature beside him hadn't acted like the Spike he remembered. Spike was confident, cocky, and always had a snarky comment. This Spike (the one he had just finished raping ten minutes ago) was nothing like that. He spent most of his time cowering in a cage, or snarling and growling at him. He hadn't tried to talk at all and frankly it was annoying the hell out of Riley.

The more annoyed he got, the more he felt like he needed control in his life. The only way he knew to get control over Spike was to beat him. So the other day he had run him thru with hot pokers. The blood curling screams the vampire had made were most satisfying to him. He especially enjoyed the way Spike would whimper when he left one in there for a long time. Of course he had to stop leaving them in the vampire because after a while his skin had started to turn an ashy-grey color and once he had almost caught fire. So Riley spent the better part of the day leaving Spike chained up and running pokers thru him. And when he was bored he would take a knife and make long shallow cuts along Spikes skin. When he was tired of that then he would take said knife and continually stab him in the chest. When he had finished he had left Spike crumpled in a heap trembling in a pool of his own blood.

Today he had felt the need to be more 'intimate'. He had ordered Spike onto the bed and then no to move as he forcefully entered him. Riley was in no way 'gay' but the pent up anger he had towards the vampire made it logically okay for him to dominate Spike in this manner. His whining usually annoyed him, but this time he liked it, it proved to him that _**he **_was in control here and there was nothing Spike could do about it. The vampire was obviously conflicted in emotions. He was in pain from the intrusion, but the obvious contact with his prostate sent pleasurable chills down his spine. He had thrust into Spike so hard that he had started to bleed. He had torn something. He wasn't worried though; Vampires were supposed to heal fast. He had seen tears form in the vampires eyes as he continued to pull out and thrust back in finding some sort of rhythm. The rhythm causing Spike to get hard. The vampire's tears didn't spill until after Riley had roared his completion, then in another act of dominance he rolled Spike over onto his back, grabbed Spikes shaft at the base and began to forcefully jerk his hand upward. The vampire started to shake and thrash around. Riley ordered him to 'Stop moving' and he continued. A few harsh jerks later and Spike whimpered as he came on top of Riley's fist.

Now Spike was quietly cowering on the corner of the bed. Riley kicked him off and dragged him by his hair back into his cage. As he locked the door, Spike crouched into a corner and began to look up at Riley in terror. A wicked grin passed Riley's face; he was in complete control.

Angel had spent the past two hours wondering around the city looking for people to rescue. So far he had found seven. He had killed four vampires and three demons. In all honesty he didn't know why he was doing it, he didn't have shanshu to fight for. There was just nothing in it for him anymore. He continued to walk down a long street until he suddenly found himself in front of Spikes apartment. He walked in and looked around. Spike obviously had not been there for a few days, but the scent was comforting and he decided to stay for a few days.


	7. The Wrong Book

Spike watched as Riley trapped him once again in the cage. The evil smile on the man's face sent chills down his spine. But he didn't care. All he knew now was that he was in pain. Horrible pain. He couldn't move without his body reminding him of the events of the previous days. His chest and back were covered in sores from the hot metal that sliced thru his flesh the other day. His head hurt, but that had been hurting for a while now. And now his latest injury had occurred at his entrance. He curled in on himself to try and minimize the throbbing all over his body. He jumped when his hypersensitive ears heard a metal door slam shut. He whimpered in pain once his body stretched out, he immediately tried to revert to the fetal position and tightly shut his eyes as if nothing had ever happened, trying to will his body to stop aching. He knew the creature had done it on purpose. He knew the creature enjoyed hurting him. He didn't know why.

As his body began to relax his head lay against one of the manacles that had been holding him up hours before. He slowly opened his eyes and saw a pool of blood on the floor. His blood. As soon as he smelled it his stomach started to growl. He was so hungry; he hadn't had food since… he didn't know when. He had opened his eyes one day and found himself in a bright room. He had tried to escape by running into the wall but a jolt of pain was sent thru his body and he had crumpled to the floor. Not long after that a creature had come. And it had sent another shock thru him that had made everything go black. When he had woken up he was in incredible pain. It took him a moment to realize that a new creature was kicking him. The same creature that kept him trapped in a cage.

The blood called to him. He couldn't ignore it; it was to enticing. Weakly he managed to pull himself up to a crawling position and drag himself the short distance over to the pool. The outer edge of the blood had dried and was now a dark brown color, but the majority in the middle was still a rich red. He spent a moment sniffing it, as if it could trigger some long lost memory of how he had gotten into the bright room in the first place. Nothing. He collapsed into the blood, and then struggled to pull himself out. Once he had raised his head a little he tentatively stuck his tongue out and tasted the blood. He immediately licked the rest off of his face then turned his attention to the floor. It took him three minutes to lap up all of the blood and once he was finished he crawled over to the only piece of clothing he had left in the cage: a black leather coat. He curled up in it and slowly drifted off into a fitful sleep.

The following night Angel had made it back to Spikes apartment after stopping by the hotel to get supplies (mainly blood and his drawing kit). Typical of Spike not to have anything in his apartment but beer and videogames. He wondered how the younger vampire had lived when he was here. A twinge of guilt passed thru him when he realized that he had only been here once before and that was to lie out the plan for the final battle. He had assumed Spike was doing all right… and by his standards he probably was. There was practically a free and endless supply of blood at the office. He glanced around once more and realized Spike had everything he needed here. But what Angel needed was a place to clear his head. There were too many bad memories in the hotel. Memories of both friends and loves lost, and now that he was completely alone he needed to distance himself from all of the memories. That –he was convinced- was what had triggered the dreams.

He sat down on the couch, and immediately stood back up again because something had stabbed his butt. He bent down and realized he had sit on a remote for the game system. He tossed it aside carelessly, and then picked up his pad and pencil. He stared blankly at the television for a while contemplating what to draw first. He decided he would draw the victim. Starting with the fists struggling against the manacles he worked his way down to the tense arms that thrashed around madly when trying to escape. There was something familiar about the muscles he was drawing. They seemed to have a character all their own. The more time he spent on detail, the more the victim seemed to come to life in his mind. As soon as he got to the tightly sculpted chest the victim seemed to be fighting against his restraints in order to jump off of the page. Since he had never seen the face, he drew a generic outline and left it blank.

He continued to draw for the next several hours. To his left was a pile of 'keepers': a collection of scenes from the dreams that he felt he captured perfectly and wanted to keep for examination to see if he could put a face (and possible name) to the people in his dreams. Some of them were of A.R.F torturing the victim, he had drawn him hunched over with blood dripping from his abdomen and pooling to the ground. Others were of the victim himself either chained up or cowering in the corner of his cage. Angel didn't understand why he was putting so much time and detail into pictures of people he wasn't even sure were real. The growing-larger-by-the-minute pile at his feet was all crumpled up rejects. He would get increasingly irritated when he didn't get the feeling right in the drawings. As darkness crept up around him, he disgarded his supplies and began to prepare for a night of demon hunting.

He walked the quiet streets of L.A. He had not seen any people or demons in the past seven hours. He walked back to Spikes old apartment slightly defeated. At least if there were some demons around it would take his mind off of his dreams. No matter how hard he tried images kept flashing around his head. By the time he had reached his new home, he realized that the images were probably his subconscious taunting him. After all, he had tortured people a similar way back when he was Angelus.

Spike warily watched the door thru the bars on his cage. _'So hungry.'_ He had lapped up the pool of his blood hours ago. It hadn't helped the pain in his stomach much, but it had made a little bit of difference. He didn't know what to do to get more of that red liquid. He leant his body against the back wall then looked at his broken arm. With his other arm he lifted it up and brought it up to his nose. He could smell the same liquid he had eaten earlier and wondered how to get it out of his arm. It took a while, but his hunger lead him to morph into demon face. He let his broken arm drop with a quiet 'dud' on the floor, and began to examine his face with his remaining one. Running a hand down his face he felt hard bone and sharp teeth. That was odd. He knew they hadn't been there a second ago. He began to hyperventilate, but after a while his face relaxed and everything was back to normal.

He brought his arm back up to his nose and again his face morphed. He let it drop and again everything was back to normal. He decided to try it again. For the final time he lifted his arm back to his nose and he could smell the blood underneath the surface of his pale skin. He licked it. On initial impact he did not taste any of the liquid he had before, but one of his fangs pierced his arm and his tongue caught a taste of the liquid that had made the hurt in his stomach go away for a little while. He instinctively went back to that spot and bit hard. Blood rushed into his mouth almost as fast as he could drink it. He drank liberally and stopped five minutes later once his stomach was full. Again he curled up in the black duster and went to sleep. He was awakened some hours later when the first creature strode into the cellar with a confused look on his face. At first he looked around the room in complete bewilderment, then his eyes fell on Spike on the floor of the cage.

"H-h-hostile 17," he stammered. "You can't be here. Agent Finn said he dusted you…"

Riley was fuming. What the hell was taking Peters so long? He had given him simple directions to go to his quarters and bring up the book _'Old Demons: 101'_. It was in plain view on his bookshelf. How could he have not seen it? Now Riley had to stop class and go look for Peters. _' He had better have a damn good explanation for why it's taking him so long.'_ Riley thought as he headed toward his basement room. When he got there he noticed the front door was ajar. Which made sense because Peters knew he wouldn't be there for long. His assignment had been to get in, get the book and get out. But when Riley walked into his room, there was no sign of Peters anywhere. Except for the door, everything had been exactly the way he left it this morning when he went to work. He walked over to the bookshelf and began to examine it. The book: _Old Demons: 101_ was right where he left it at eye level. _'Well the book is still there. Either he didn't come in to get it or…'_ a horrifying thought crossed his mind. His eyes diverted two shelf levels and he noticed that the _Demons 101_ book had been moved. '_Shit.'_ He thought as he tilted the book back and began to walk into the cellar which he was currently confining Spike.

As soon as the shelf moved over he rushed into the cellar. He heard Peters confused voice ask Spike what he was doing in the cage. He slowly approached Peters and as soon as he did Spike began to cower in a corner. "What the HELL are you doing in here!" Riley yelled at him.

"Sir!" Peters said as he instinctively stood at attention.

"I asked you a question." Riley barked. He did not want anyone to know that the vampire was down here.

"I was getting the book like you said, when the weirdest thing happened. Did you know that your bookcase moves?" he asked with a look of awe on his face. Riley looked incredibly pissed off. "Right. Of course you know… otherwise he probably wouldn't be in here and you wouldn't have known where to find me… I mean…" he was rambling.

"I told you to get the _'Old Demons: 101'_ book, not snoop around my PRIVATE quarters!"

"Sir I wasn't snooping." He tried to defend himself. "I was looking at the shelf and found the old copy of the _'Demons: 101'_ book. And when I went to pull it of-"

"The What?" Riley asked.

"The book: _'Demons: 101'_. I found the old copy and when I went to pull it off of the shelf the thing just moved to the side and I ended up in here."

"I didn't tell you to get the book: _'Demons: 101'_. I told you to get the book: _'Old Demons: 101'_ you idiot."

"Oh"

"I order you to keep your mouth shut about this. No one but you is to know that I am keeping a HST here, and no one is to know that the HST in my room is Hostile 17. As far as anyone outside this room is concerned he was dusted by a security demon a few days ago. Is that clear?"

"Sir, yes sir!" he shouted.

"As punishment for snooping around my quarters and disrupting class; I order you to clean up after Hostile 17's mess." He pointed to the pool of blood on the floor of the cage, which surprisingly wasn't there. He peered over Peters shoulder to get a better look at Spike who was still cowering in the corner. He was cradling his broken arm to his chest, but Riley had seen it. There was a definite bite mark on his arm. "And make sure to feed the hostile before you leave" he added as he stalked out of the room. It wouldn't do to have Spike waste away this soon. He still had so much he wanted to do to him.


	8. The Time That Passes

Spike watched from the corner as the creature who liked to hurt him walked away and left him with the first creature he'd seen. He looked angry. Spike watched as he stomped over to the cage and opened it. He walked in, closed the door and aggressively approached Spike. There was no where left for him to go, so he continued to huddle in the corner and try to be invisible, he knew it was useless. He yelped out in pain as Peters forcefully grabbed his arm and twisted it backwards. He tried to struggle away but the grip was too strong. _'Alone. Vulnerable. No pack… need to protect self'_ Spike morphed into demon face and made to bite Peters, but he was suddenly released and kicked very hard in the shins.

"Listen you stupid hostile." Peters yelled. "I'm not any more happy about this than you are, but it seems Agent Finn has it in for the both of us and I'm gonna have to do what he says. And right now he says that you need food, so I guess I'll go to storage and get you a bag of blood. Cool?" he stared at the hostile that seemed to not have understood him. Either that or he just wasn't listening. "Hey!" he yelled as he kicked Spike once more. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!" he yelled again. Spike looked up blankly. "Look you're a vampire. I know 'cuz I saw your face. I know vampires can speak, why don't you? And what's this 'history' you've got with Finn? Answer me dam nit!" again the hostile cowered in the corner and let out a whining sound. Then it hit Peters like a bag of bricks to the face. "You _can't_ talk can you?" he asked with a little bit of sympathy in his voice. He looked around nervously, and then backed out of the cage, made sure everything was locked and went to go find that blood bag.

On his way to storage he ran into Riley on the second floor holding a stack of paperwork. "Sir." He said as Riley approached. "May I have a word with you sir?" he asked tentatively.

"Sure Peters. What's on your mind? But make it fast will you, as you can see I'm going to be busy for the next few hours"

"It's about the special assignment you have me on sir."

"What about it?" Riley asked distractedly. Then as an afterthought added "You didn't tell anyone about it did you?"

"No sir. I was just wondering how long I was going to be on it."

Riley looked around uncomfortably then motioned for Peters to follow him as he began walking to his office. "For as long as I tell you to be." He said sternly.

"Oh, ok."

"Is there anything else Peters?"

"Well sir, now that you mentioned it, I was just down there talking to the HST and he doesn't."

"Doesn't what Perters?" Riley asked with a hint of annoyance as he fished out his office keys from his pocket. "Here." He thrust the papers into his hands.

"Doesn't talk sir. If fact I don't think he's acting like a regular va- creature of his kind. Do you want me to sedate him and get him checked out?"

"Were those your orders Peters?"

"No sir."

"Tell me again, what _were_ your orders?"

"My orders were to feed the assignment and also clean up its cage sir."

"That's right." He opened the door and pushed Peters into his office. "Now, where were you on your way to?"

"The storage room to get the assignment some blood sir."

"Good. Make sure you get rats blood. It's less nutritious."

"Sir?" Peters asked confused. "I thought you wanted the assignment to stay alive."

"Yes. Alive. Blood will keep him alive but for what I have planned I just need him alive, not well."

"May I ask what you have planned?"

"You're dismissed Peters." With that Riley instructed him to put the papers down on the desk and quickly leave his office before he threw him out himself.

Peters left the office in a huff. He had no idea why he wanted to know what his superior was up to, but something about torturing a hostile for the hell of it just didn't seem right. He made his way to the back of the far left of the second floor, all the while following the arrows labeled 'storage'. He slowly approached the double doors; they didn't have any windows and in the past he had gotten at least three black eyes for not watching where he was going. Once he was sure the coast was clear he carefully pushed the left door open and walked in. He turned to the directory and began to look for the word: blood. He had never been sent here for blood. Whenever he had been sent to storage it was always for behavior modifying chips. He ran his finger over the directory until he found the word 'blood'. _'There it is. In the freezer section."_

He walked down the hall and to the right to a door clearly marked: Freezer. He pushed the door open and shivered immediately. It was 30 degrees in there. _'Okay, Finn said to get rats blood… now where's the rat blood?'_ he wondered as he wandered thru the isles and looked at labels. _'There it is.'_ He thought as he bent down to pick it up. He honestly had no idea how demons could drink this stuff. But then again, while his eyes were roaming over the directory he had seen the word 'kittens' listed under the 'food' column. He quickly grabbed a bag of rats' blood and left.

He was back in Finns room ten minutes later. The bookshelf stood there mocking him. He really didn't want to be in there with Hostile 17. He also didn't want to clean up after Hostile 17. _'Why did I have to take Finns directions literally? We were studying about old demons of course the name of the book would be 'Old Demons: 101'. Now I'm stuck being a nanny.'_ He pulled the book back and entered the room. The hostile was drinking from its arm. Peters took pity on it and threw in the blood bag. It landed just to the side of the vampire.

At first it just looked at the bag, after about a minute it dropped its arm and leaned over to the bag. With its good arm it poked at the bag, then immediately jerked away as if the bag had burned it. Then it tried again. This time it picked up the bag, sniffed it, and then morphed into vamp face and bit down hard. He sighed; this was going to be a long punishment.

Angel sighed in frustration as he stood over the bathroom sink splashing water on his face. He lifted his head to look in the mirror and saw nothing. He didn't know why he had done it; he knew he didn't have a reflection. Another sigh of frustration. He had thought that once he moved into Spikes apartment he wouldn't have any more nightmares. But that wasn't true, for the past two weeks he had been thrown back into that basement. He had seen that poor victim be beaten, cut, and raped with many objects. Every night he had more and more leftover cuts and bruises. During this last dream there wasn't a patch of porcelain white left on him, every part of him was covered in black and purple bruises. There was dark, crusted blood covering day-old stab wounds. But what disturbed him the most were the bite marks on his arms… had A.R.F been feeding him to a vampire? _'Ugh. Why do I keep having these stupid dreams?'_ he thought as he left the bathroom.

He walked over to the closet and grabbed a shirt and a pair of pants. Spikes clothes were still on their hangers, they were too small for Angel, but he didn't want to remove them, so he pushed them to the side (they didn't take up much room; Spike only had a few clothes to begin with) and made room for his own clothes. He prepared himself for another day of demon fighting. Although the past few weeks had been slow on the demon front, he knew that sooner or later the demons would come back and when they did he would be ready. He would continue to do the work he had done for the Powers, even though now he didn't believe in it. He honestly had no idea why he was fighting or what he was fighting for. There was no shinny light at the end of his endless tunnel of redemption. There was no promise to be human. There basically was no 'happily ever after' for him. Still he dressed, stalked up on weapons, and left the apartment.

It was another quiet night in the city of Los Angeles. He did his rounds on this warm moonless night, and once again as soon as he finished he wandered over to the site where he had last smelled Spike. He knew what he was doing was illogical. Spikes scent just stopped in the stairwell. But he had this nagging feeling like he had missed something because no matter how many times he had been there, he hadn't seen any dust, only dirt. Again he would go to the stairwell and search for clues. He would sniff the walls, and the door handles, then he would run a finger on the floor and lick the dirt to see if he could taste Spike. Again it had been of no use. He hadn't found anything, as he turned to leave his eyes fell upon the bloodstain on the stairs. He stared at it for a minute and began to imagine Spike falling backwards, hitting his head, and then passing out. Laying unconscious and vulnerable waiting for the sun to take him. Angel shook the thought out of his head, ascended the stairs, and began the walk back home.

It was nearly sunrise when Angel got back to the apartment. He opened the door and walked in, once he turned on the light he noticed that he had left his drawings scattered all over the floor. Sighing heavily he went to pick them up. When he was done he had three neatly staked piles on the kitchen table. He then went to get a beer out of the fridge, drank it in a few long gulps, and then headed over to the bedroom to get some sleep. He hoped he wouldn't dream, but with the way he life had been going recently, hoping didn't seem to be getting him anywhere.

Peters didn't know that his routine for the past two weeks would be the routine for the next five months. If he had, he would have started giving the hostile blood tainted with sedatives a lot sooner. The sedatives made it easier for him to clean the vomit and blood left in the cage after one of Finns 'meetings' with the hostile. Then he would clean the hostile. He knew it wasn't in his orders to do so, but a small part of him felt bad for it. He was trained to believe that all HST's were dangerous, but Hostile 17's current condition made him vulnerable and deep down Peters knew that what ever it had done to piss Finn off so badly did not warrant this kind of treatment. Peters wondered exactly what Finn did to it. Every time he would come in to either feed it or clean the cage it was more and more badly bruised and beaten. In fact, after the third month he noticed it was becoming increasingly difficult for the hostile to walk… or crawl as it had been accustomed to doing. Peters also wondered about the long-term effects of giving Hostile 17 rat blood. It didn't seem to be healing as fast as it had said in the books.

One day Peters decided to protest, and though at first he was blatantly ignored, eventually Finn had started giving it rest days; claiming that his arms were tired, or that he himself needed a break. It wasn't like the hostile was going to go anywhere anytime soon, and the sedatives keep it disoriented. So today was the day of the Halloween party and Peters was stuck in Finns basement babysitting the hostile. He walked over to the medicine cabinet to collect ointment and bandages to care for its burns. He had gotten there a bit early today and had found Finn pouring oil on its skin, and then throwing matches on the places covered in oil. Once Finn had left, Peters threw the bag of tainted blood into the cage. The hostile had taken it and was now fast asleep on the cement floor. He came back a few minutes later with the supplies and left the cage door wide open as he brought in the mop and water to clean the vomit. But first he was going to care for the burns. He walked over to the sleeping form and decided to start with the burns on its face. "Okay, lets see what we can do here." He said as his hand tentatively reached out to tilt its jaw… something didn't feel right. He tilted its head up and then he saw it.

"Shit! He didn't take the blood…"


	9. Get Here If You Can

Angel had found himself in a room he knew very well. He had spent every night of the past five months in this room with the same people. This time he walked into the cage. He still couldn't see any ones face or hear anything that was said. So just as before, he watched. He watched the victim struggle against the chains that bound him to the wall. Angel had watched him become increasingly weaker over the pest few months and wondered if these scenes he saw every night was his subconscious' way of showing him his will to keep fighting. That too had weakened since the final battle. A.R.F was standing right next to him, leaning over the victim with a bottle of liquid in his hand. Angel watched as he poured the liquid (it looked like oil) over the smaller mans chest. He then reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a box of matches. He watched in horror as A.R.F lit the match, then threw it onto the smaller mans skin. The smaller man twisted his body in agony as his flesh caught fire. A hot rage took over Angel and he attempted to punch A.R.F in the side of his head, but his fist went straight thru and he almost fell over from the memento.

" Damn-it!" he yelled. He didn't like feeling helpless, and lately he hadn't felt more helpless and useless like he did when he was in these dreams. He decided to leave the cage and stand by the back door again. As he turned to leave he heard a voice. He was stunned, it was the first time he had ever heard someone talking in these dreams, but it wasn't just talking it was singing. It was singing a singing voice he knew well. He turned around and his jaw dropped as he saw Lorne walk into the basement wearing a royal blue suit.

"There are hills and mountains between us. Always something to get over. If I had my way, surely you would be closer. I need you closer oh closer_._" Lorne sang.

"Lorne?" Angel asked in disbelief. He hadn't seen Lorne since he had told him that after he killed Lindsey, Angel shouldn't expect to see him in the alley and that he was leaving for good.

"Hi, Angel-pie" Lorne said with a huge grin on his face.

"A-are you… H-how'd you get here?" he asked, still not sure if the image in front of him was actually Lorne or his brain playing more tricks on him. He exited the cage and walked over to face Lorne. For the first time in months he wasn't paying attention to the scene in front of him. All he could do was stare at Lorne.

"Well it's the strangest thing sweetie, I was walking down the street –minding my own business- and all of a sudden a door shows up. Now I'm like 'what the heck? How did a door get here in the first place?' but then something told me to open it. So I open the door," he paused to chuckle at the memory. "And here I am. The acoustics in here are ah-may-zing by the way." He finished while slapping the vampire on the back.

"Are you real?"

"I'm as real as any of this is big guy." He said while waving his arm around as if in a grand gesture.

"So, you're not real." Disappointment was evident in his voice.

"Well, that's a tricky question." He put his hand back on Angels shoulder. "Like I said; I'm as real as any of this."

"But this is a dream right?" Angel asked pointedly. "I'm dreaming!"

"You see Angel-cake, this _could_ be a dream, and I'm just a figment of your imagination –a projection caused by the flyer for the new _Caritas _you saw in the newspaper this morning- heck for all I know we could have dreamed the last three years up and we're really back in Pylea and my head's still detached from my body." He looked over at Angel who was giving him a 'get to the point' look. "Any-who; this could be a dream, or it could be the PTB trying to tell you that someone out there," He turned angel around to see the smaller man who was no longer on fire but his skin was still smoking, and badly burned. "Needs your help."

"Who is he?" Angel asked.

"_I don't care how you get here. Just get here if you can."_ Lorne had started singing again. He then lifted his right hand, pulled back a part of his sleeve and looked at the bare, green skin on his wrist. "Oh, would you look at the time Angel-cake? I gotta catch the next _midnight train to Georgia_ out of here." He turned to leave.

"Wait Lorne," Angel grabbed his wrist. "Who is he?" he asked again.

"You know the answer to that one big guy. Who do you think he is?"

"I don't know who he is! I don't know who any of these people are!" Angel looked around, a third person -who he also could not see his face- had showed up. He had never seen this person before, and had no clue why he was there.

"Well big guy the PTB tell me you know who he is and he needs your help. There's nothing more I can tell you." He looked at Angel sympathetically.

"Someone needs _my_ help?"

"That's all I can tell you"

"Someone needs my help…"

Angel awoke dazed and staring at the ceiling in Spike's room. Which was now (like the rest of the apartment) covered in his drawings of the victim and A.R.F. What had happened? Had he not been dreaming these past few months? Was Lorne right? Had the Powers been sending him visions of someone in trouble? Had he ignored them all?

Groggily he got out of bed. He walked over to the kitchen to find yesterdays newspaper. Something Lorne had said had troubled him: "this _could_ be a dream, and I'm just a figment of your imagination –a projection caused by the flyer for the new _Caritas _you saw in the newspaper this morning". Had he seen a flyer for _Caritas_? Angel didn't remember. He found the paper on top of a stack of drawings. He began flipping thru it when a postcard shaped paper fell out and onto the floor. Angel picked it up. Sure enough Lorne's face greeted him with a big toothy smile, and the caption read: "_Caritas_: NOW OPEN". Angel didn't know why he didn't see it yesterday. Had he just glanced at it?

He looked at the clock on the wall. It was 5:30; sunset was in an hour. He decided to take a shower, dress, then go meet Lorne at Caritas, and ask him about what he meant by someone needing his help, and the powers telling him that Angel knew who that person was. It was impossible; with the exception of Lorne and the Sunnydale people… and possibly Kate, everyone he knew was dead. And the victim was definitely not a woman; so that ruled out Kate, Dawn, Faith, Buffy, and Willow. His body was young looking so that ruled out Giles. And something told Angel that the body did not belong to Xander Harris.

He dressed quickly, and as soon as the sun went down he was out and about heading to Caritas. A thousand song names ran thru his head as he walked the streets alone. He wondered which one he should sing tonight. Should he give Berry and _Mandy _a rest? Should he try that song Lorne sang in his dream? ... Vision? Whatever it was. There were many people out tonight, he had yet to see or sense a demon, so he figured it would be another slow night. It took him twenty minutes to walk to the club. He stood outside –underneath the bright orange sign- for a while, then took an un-needed breath and walked in. He looked around. On the stage, there was a woman singing a very off-key version of _Candle in the Wind_ and the audience had forced smiles of encouragement on their faces. Lorne was sitting at the bar, sea breeze in hand and a grimace on his face.

Angel walked over and sat down right next to him. Lorne turned his head to look at the person who had sat next to him. When he first laid eyes on Angel, the expression he gave off was first shock, then anger. "What are you doing here?" he asked harshly.

Taken aback by his tone Angel said "I came here to talk about what you told me earlier."

"Earlier?"

"Yeah, in the basement."

"Basement?"

"Yeah, we were both in the basement and that guy was getting burned."

"Angel what are you talking about? I haven't seen or spoken to you in about six months. The last time I saw you I told you not to look for me in the alley and that I was taking off after I killed Lindsey."

Angel stared at him in shock. "But we say each other. Yesterday. We were in a basement and…"

"What are you talking about?" Lorne asked, confusion evident on his face.

Angel looked down as Lorne signaled the bartender to get him a drink. "So it was just a dream." He mumbled as a sea breeze appeared in front of him. He looked up at Lorne. "I need you to read me."

"What?" he said as he nearly chocked on his drink.

"In the dream, you told me that the Powers were sending me these dreams. You said someone needed my help. I need to know more Lorne, I need you to read me." He said urgently.

Lorne looked saddened by the distressed look on his friends face. "Fine." He said, then Angel turned to make his way to the stage "But no Manilow!" he added as an afterthought.

Angel got up on stage and grabbed the mike. He began to sing the song he had heard Lorne sing in his dream. Maybe it would help him get some answers.

"_You can reach me by railway, you can reach me by trail way_

_You can reach me on an airplane; you can reach me with your mind_

_You can reach me by caravan, cross the desert like an Arab man_

_I don't care how you get here; just get here if you can_

_You can reach me by sailboat; climb a tree and swing rope to rope_

_Take a sled and slide down the slope, into these arms of mine_

_You can jump on a speedy colt, cross the border in a blaze of hope_

_I don't care how you get here; just get here if you can_

_There are hills and mountains between us_

_Always something to get over_

_If I had my way, sur…"_

Lorne making a slicing motion with his hang across his throat cut him off mid chorus. He stopped suddenly, gave the mike back to the man who was still playing the piano, walked off stage and headed over to him. "Now how long did you say you've been having these dreams?" he asked.

"Since the alley… so about six months"

Lorne nodded his head in agreement. "And is it the same dream every night?"

"No, it changes every night. They guy who gets beat, he has more and more scars each night." Angel said. He voice was far away like he was reliving it all again.

"And can you see anything… faces, words…flashy signs?"

"No." he said defeated. Then he remembered, "Well this one time I saw some words on a computer file… it looked like some kind of computer program. Other than that I haven't seen anything."

"Mh-hum… well I don't know what to say to you Angel-pie. Other than: Are you crazy? The PTB have been sending you visions for months! What were you thinking?"

Angel looked like he had been hit in the face by a bag of bricks. "What! You mean they _weren't _dreams? But… but I thought the Powers gave up on me… Shit Lorne I agreed to run an evil law-firm! And got all of my friends killed! How could they not have given up on me?"

"Well they haven't." Lorne stated plainly. "And there's some pour soul out there that needs your help!"

"Who is it?" Angel asked anxiously. He was so excited: he was finally going to get some answers.

"I don't know Angel-cake. I couldn't see any faces. But something tells me you know whoever it is. Otherwise you wouldn't have ignored it for so long."

"That makes no sense Lorne." He was starting to get irritated.

"It is what it is Angel… oh and there's one more thing…" he suddenly trailed off in deep thought.

"What is it?" he asked as Lorne started to chew his lower lip.

"Well you said the dreams take place in a basement."

"Yeah that's right… except a few times they took place in a bedroom directly outside of the basement."

"Well when I read you, I didn't see any basement."

"What did you see?"

"I saw the sewers"

Angel arrived at the apartment with two hours to sunset. What had Lorne meant by the sewers? Had the victim escaped? Was he set free? Angel picked up his paper and pencil and began to draw. Then he thought better of it, put the utensils down and walked into the bedroom. He quickly undressed, climbed into bed and braced himself for a fitful sleep.


	10. Home

Spike was lying very still on the floor. He knew that the slightest movement would let the creature know that he was still aware. A while ago he had discovered that the liquid in the bags the creature brought him had made him vulnerable. Every time he ate it he got weaker and weaker. So a while ago he had started hiding the bags underneath the black coat in the corner, then when the creature wasn't looking he would toss it under the table next to the cage. He began drinking from his crooked arm again for the nourishment. He would study the creature from his place on the floor. He knew if he did this enough times he would be able to plan his escape.

He had found that whenever the creature had to clean the cage before it would chain him to the wall it would leave the door unlocked and open while it got the necessary supplies. After watching this enough times Spike decided today was the day he would escape. The fire had hurt a lot more than any of the other things the creature that liked to hurt him had done. He was covered in blisters and burns from the fire, and he had tiny scratches all over his body from the sand that had been thrown on him to put out the fire. As soon as the creature had stopped, Spike began to vomit. This time it was forced. He knew he had to get out of the cage soon or the creature was going to kill him.

So here he was, lying on the floor next to his puddle of vomit, hoping his plan would work. And so far it had. The creature had thrown the bag into the cage. Spike weakly made his way over to it and once the creatures back was turned hid it under his coat, but the creature turned around again and he didn't have enough time to hide it well. So Spike layid back down and remained still as the creature walked back into the cage leaving the door open. "Okay, let's see what we can do here." He said as his hand tentatively reached out to tilt Spikes jaw. The creature then tilted his head up and nearly yelled: "Shit! He didn't take the blood…"

Spike took that as his cue to kick the creature off of him with as much strength as he could gather. Which wasn't much but luckily he had hit it in the balls. "Argh, you son of a bitch! Get back here you damn hostile!" The creature was now doubled over in pain and he was free to run out the cage, and then the door. The creature fallowed him into the bedroom and forcefully grabbed his bad leg and dragged him to the floor. "Oh no you don't!" it shouted as it began to twist the leg it was now grabbing. Spike struggled to get free. Thrashing around wildly until the computer desk he was next to fell over and his body was suddenly hit with a painful shock. "You can't escape. Finns gonna kill me if I let you get out of here!" The creature tried to grab him again, but Spike kicked at it again and this time cut its leg with one of his overgrown toenails. He heard it shout in pain. He kicked once more, harder than the last time and made contact with its balls again. This time as he ran to the door, the creature didn't try to stop him again.

Once out the door, he was greeted with fresh air and sunshine. The sun burned worse than the matches had. Spike yelped in pain and shock as his hand spontaneously combusted into flames. He looked around for a place to hide, but didn't see any shade. He could feel the hairs on his head start to smoke. He looked around wildly until he spotted an open manhole. He quickly crawled into it, and fell into the sewers. The sewer water quickly extinguished his hand, and he moved into a corner so he could stay as far away from the light as possible.

He looked around. There were many smaller creatures here. They looked different then the ones above, but smelled oddly familiar. He instinctually grabbed one from the opposite wall and then morphed into vamp face. He could hear the creature's tiny heartbeat hasten; he began to salivate. He held the creature up to his mouth and bit down hard. A warm liquid began to fill his mouth and he lapped it up hungrily. This was so much better than the liquid he had been given lately. That stuff had a funny taste. This tasted fresh. He soon realized that there were enough furry creatures down here to ease the pain in his stomach. He had begun to relax a bit when a thought struck him: _'Not safe yet. Need go farther in'_. He began to walk farter away from the place he had escaped from. He walked for three hours and when he couldn't walk anymore he collapsed in a tunnel full of furry creatures that scurried away as he approached. Here he felt would do. He didn't know who he was or what he was. All he knew was that up there had been light and pain, and here in the sewers was dark and safe. He found a dry area, curled up on himself and went to sleep.

Angel was disturbed. It had been the first time in months that he hadn't had a single dream. How was he supposed to help whoever it was if he didn't know where they were? Lorne had told him to look in the sewers. Maybe that was the trade off. Angel finally got some answers and was told his dreams were really visions that he had been ignoring for months. Now that he knew where to look, the dreams had abruptly stopped. He hoped that the victim was all right, he hadn't seen how he had looked after A.R.F had stopped lighting him on fire. He shuddered at the memory. He dragged himself out of bed and quickly got dressed, and prepared himself for a night in the sewers.

"Let me get this straight." Riley said in a falsely calm voice as he towered over Peters. "You let Hostile 17 escape."

"I didn't _let_ him do an-" Riley punching him in the gut and knocking the wind out of him cut him off.

"IS HE HERE?" he yelled while pacing the basement.

"No." Peters wheezed. He was having a hard time breathing and needed to gasp for air regularly.

"That's right, he's not. And _why_ is that Peters?"

"He escaped sir."

"_How_ did he escape?" Riley asked. He was getting irritated. He had left Peters simple instructions and he couldn't even follow them.

"I gave him… the blood." He took a deep ragged breath and continued. "I turned my back for a second to get the mop, and when I turned around he looked unconscious."

"So you didn't actually see him drink." It wasn't a question. Riley started looking around the room for clues. His eyes first fell upon Spikes duster; there was a bag of blood sticking out from under it. Then his eyes fell underneath a table. Interesting.

"N-no b-but he always drinks. So I figured the sedatives had him under."

"Come here!" Riley ordered. Peters obeyed and slowly made his way over, his head hanging down like a child in trouble. "Does _this_ look like he 'always drinks'?" he pointed to the spot under the table where at least ten bags of blood laid. Since they only fed Spike once a day he knew that the vampire had not been taking the blood for a while. "Well…" Riley demanded.

"Oh." Was all Peters could say.

"Oh" Riley mimicked. "OH! You let a HST escape and all you can say is 'oh'" he was fuming.

"Well… he's still chipped sir… so you could still track him that way…"

"Let me show you something Peters." Riley said in a deathly calm voice. Peters mentally braced himself for another series of blows, and followed him to his bedroom. "You see this?" he pointed at his overturned desk, and broken computer with coffee spilled all over it. "This was the only way to track his chip and it's ruined. The program will no longer work because the computer has short circuited and the only program for his chip was _ON THIS COMPUTER_!" he emphasized the last three words with a kick to what was left of his computer.

Peters watched and felt like fleeing the scene. "Is ther…" he cleared his throat which had become increasingly dry the longer this conversation lasted with Finn. "Is there anything you would like me to do sir?"

"FIND THE DAMN HOSTILE!" Riley shouted and Peters was out of his room in a flash.

Angel had spent the better part of five hours searching the sewers with a flashlight. So far he had seen nothing but a group of middle class demons playing kitten poker. It made since. The day before had been Halloween and now all the demons were above ground causing chaos. But Angel didn't have time for them right now. He needed to find this victim he knew or had known at some time in the past. His vampire hearing picked up on a lot of squeaks; he then noticed all of the rats running around and tried not to gag. Rats always brought back bad memories of attempting to cope with his soul but still needing to survive. He had spent close to three decades living off them until Whistler had come to help him out. He shuddered… it hadn't been that long ago… how long had it been? Angel thought about it. It had only been about eight or nine years since Whistler had found him in that alley. It had only been about eight years ago when his whole quest for redemption started (and that was the redemption for redemptions sake). And it had only been about four years since this whole redemption for a prize thing started to happen. He continued walking for an hour until he decided it was time to go back home. He would continue searching tomorrow. So far he had seen no sign of the victim and wondered how far into the city he would need to go before he did. He noticed he would soon be under the hotel, he briefly thought about staying there for the day, but then quickly changed his mind. He had enough time to make it back to the apartment.

Once he was directly under the hotel he heard a strange noise. The noise had come from somewhere behind him on his left side. Shining the light in the area he saw a gang of rats scurry away. He had the sensation of being watched, but he quickly wrote it off as that creepy feeling you get when you're surrounded by rodents. He quickly made his way back to the apartment.

As soon as the light and this new familiar creature passed, Spike came out of hiding. He could tell that this tall creature wasn't like the others that looked like it. This one felt different. Stronger. He let out a soft keening noise as he watched it pass with the light. He quickly turned his attention to the mice and began to hunt a few to eat.

The days spent in the sewers quickly turned into weeks, which quickly turned into months. Spike had seen the familiar creature every night and continuously hid in the shadows. Some nights it seemed like the creature was tracking him. He had no idea what this creatures intentions were, and he didn't want to be put back into a cage and be hurt again. He had also seen the first creature a few times. He had to move around every few days to get it off of his trail.

After two months it was getting increasingly colder in the sewers and Spike had eaten all of the furry creatures he could find. He had to find shelter and more food soon, so one day he decided to brave the surface world again. So he did. He climbed up a nearby latter and up a manhole. He tentatively stuck his hand out and when he felt to burning sensation he risked sticking his head out too. It was nighttime and he was in an alley. He heard scurrying; he turned his head to the side and saw two furry creatures. He quickly pulled himself out of the hole and followed the creatures around the corner, up some stairs and into a building. Once inside the building Spike forgot about the pain in his stomach. There were many furry creatures for him to eat here, and it was warm.

He spent the next several minutes exploring his new surroundings. He found various blankets and cushions. He went thru the kitchen area and down the stairs and found another cage. The smell in this room was comforting to him so he didn't mind the cage being there. Besides there were no creatures in here to hurt him. He quickly crouched up the stairs three at a time and pushed many blankets and cousins down to the basement. It didn't take him long to make himself a nest, and as he nuzzled down into it a single word crossed his mind: _'Home'_


	11. Ice Water

Angel had spent the past two months searching the sewers; he never really made it past the hotel. Every time he had gotten there something inside told him to stop and look around. It didn't take him long to realize that someone or something was watching him. He grew increasingly frustrated as he continued to look for the victim. Some nights he forgot about his mission all together and just went to the spot under the hotel to see if he could sense anything. Occasionally he would. He would always manage to loose the smell a few feet away. There was something very familiar about the smell, but Angel refused to believe that he knew whom the smell belonged to. However, he did notice that as the weeks went on, there were fewer and fewer rats. Until one day he went down there and there was nothing. There weren't any more rats and the smell had seemed to vanish.

Angel was disappointed that he hadn't found the victim. But judging by how cold it was getting with three days to Christmas and Los Angeles's first snowstorm in ten years, he had hoped that the victim had found some form of shelter to live in if Angel couldn't find him. Or better yet, he hoped the victim had somehow found his family and was now safe and on his way to healing. It was hard not worrying about him. He had spent six months of his life with the victim and had seen all of the terrible things that had happened to him. The feeling of total helplessness had made him sick, Angel couldn't be helpless; he needed to help people. That's what he swore to do once he met Doyle, and so far he wasn't doing a good job. He couldn't even help this poor man who was supposedly living in the sewers now. His lack of visions weren't helping wither. How was he supposed to find this man if he couldn't see where he was? Then again, maybe the man didn't want to be found. Maybe he was hiding from people for fear that he couldn't trust anyone and every human out there was going to hurt him. If Angel had been thru what the victim had been thru, then he wouldn't trust people either.

He shivered underneath his duster. It had suddenly gotten very cold down there. He looked at his watch and realized he didn't have enough time to make it back to the apartment before sunrise, so he decided he would spend some time back at the hotel. Besides, it had become a Christmas tradition for him to spend a few days in the hotel. It reminded him of happier times and he could reflect on the time he missed out with Connor. It also gave him time to brood about the friends he'd lost.

With a heavy sigh, he jumped up and pulled himself thru a manhole. When he saw the side of the building, he was a little disoriented at first. He had thought that he had climbed thru the manhole that leads to the hotel basement. The wind had picked up again and he thought he smelled something vaguely familiar. He soon shook off the feeling and chalked it up to being back around the hotel. He had spent so much of the past five years here that it always felt like he was coming home whenever he was here. He turned the corner and walked up to the stairs of the building. In the back of his mind he sensed that something was different. He took a look at the building. The front door had been tagged and a few of the windows were broken.

Walking into the hotel he quickly found what had broken the windows. There were many large rocks lying around on random places on the floor. They had obviously been thrown into the building, most likely by teenagers. Sighing heavily, he went back outside and found five wooden boards he could use to cover the windows. It wouldn't do for him to be walking around the hotel in the morning and then suddenly burst into flames. He carried the boards into the hotel and placed them on the floor of the lobby. Then he walked to the kitchen and looked under the sink for the toolbox. Once he found it, he pulled out a red hammer and a bag of nails, and then he went to work on boarding up the windows. He finished fifteen minutes later.

'_Okay, well since I'm gonna be here a while I should probably get settled in my room…' _He thought as he put the tools back in the kitchen. He turned to leave but the feeling of being watched stopped him in his tracks. _'What the hell?'_ he wondered as he turned back around and saw the basement door had been opened. "Must have been the wind." He mumbled as he walked over to close it. His vampire hearing picked up on noises in the basement. At first he thought it was just rats, but he thought he smelled something strange so he decided to check it out.

Spike was napping when he heard strange noises coming from upstairs. He slowly left the comfort of his warm bed and crouched up the stairs. He had been here for a few days and had seen no other signs of life aside from the furry creatures. _'Quiet. Keep quiet.'_ He thought as he slowly nudged open the door and peeked into the room. There was the creature from the sewers, it was holding something red. Spike recognized it as a thing that caused pain. The creature that liked to hurt him had used one of those on him a few times. _'If I stay quiet the creature will go away. Too weak to attack, attack only if it comes close…'_ he thought as he observed the creature. It looked like it was retreating, but it quickly turned around, and began to walk over to where he was hiding. _'HIDE'_ he thought as the creature began to come closer to the door.

Spike nearly tripped down the stairs as he hurried to get to the manhole on the far side of the basement. The creature had made its way into the basement and was now cautiously walking down the stairs. Spike had reached the manhole and removed the top with his good hand. The creature hurried down the remainder of the steps and it looked at him. '_RUN'_ he thought as he escaped down the manhole and into the sewers.

Angel didn't know what to think. What was that thing? He wondered. He had made eye contact with it and there was something too familiar about those piercing blue eyes. _'But, it couldn't be. There must be some kind of explanation… I must be loosing my mind. Yeah that's it, all this time alone and I'm starting to see ghosts.'_ He tried to reason with himself. But in the back of his mind he knew what he had seen was not a ghost. But what he had seen had looked like… but it couldn't be. It just couldn't be. He followed the creature down the manhole. He was going to get some answers.

The creature seemed to know that Angel was on to it because every time he would get close it would run again just bareley out of his grasp. _'It knows these sewers abut as well as I do.'_ He thought as he continued to follow the creature in what felt like a circle for ten minutes. The creature seemed to be hurt because it was limping badly and running with an awkward gait. He soon realized that it would be doubling back to the hotel as soon as it lost Angel, so he decided to fall behind, let it think it had won, and then capture it back at the hotel.

Angel waited impatiently crouched on the stairs for twenty minutes until the creature made another appearance. He watched as it tentatively poked its head out of the manhole and scanned the area to be sure it was safe. As soon as it climbed out the hole and pushed the top back on, Angel pounced. The creature tried to fight but was too weak and was quickly overpowered by Angel's size. They continued to struggle for a while, and then Angel grabbed it by the ankles (at which point the creature gave off a scream of pain) and threw it into the open cage. He quickly ran out of the cage and locked the door.

The creature began to throw itself against the bars, desperately trying to escape. But it was no use, and on its final attempt, it hit its head against the bars and fell over unconscious. After a few minutes in which Angel made sure the creature was really knocked out and not just faking, he entered the cage. He walked over to the creature and slowly turned it over. "No." he whispered as he slowly backed away from it. _'It can't be… it's just… not possible…'_ but Angel knew it was true. There was no denying the smell that was hidden underneath all the sewer filth. This creature in front of him was Spike, and Angel didn't know what to do about it.

Spike began to come to, so he quickly left the cage and locked it again. From outside he began to get a better look at Spike. His hair had grown past his shoulders and now only the tips of it were peroxide blond. The rest was it's natural brown color that 'William' had worn all those years ago. But it was all matted now and the majority of it was sitting on top of his head like a beehive. One of his arms appeared to have been broken at some point and then to have healed wrong, as a result it was twisted in an odd angle. The same appeared to have happened to one of his legs. Angel looked at the younger vampires hip and saw that it was sticking out at an odd angle as well. That would explain the awkward gait. _'Why didn't he come to me for help?'_ Angel thought bitterly. _'I mean I know he hates me but why would he let himself get this bad…'_ he trailed off as Spike woke up and immediately began to cower in a corner. Angel had a sudden feeling of dejavu. "Spike?" he asked cautiously. "Are you okay?" when he didn't receive an answer he sighed heavily and began to walk up the stairs and get some blood. As soon as he turned around Spike began making this awful keening noise.

The noise sent chills down his spine and left him with an empty feeling, like someone had thrown ice water onto his soul and it chilled him to the core. Angel paused, and then began to shake. He knew that sound.


	12. That Sound

There was that sound again. Angel slowly turned around to face Spike who was still cowering in the corner. _'That's the sound the victim had made…'_ he thought distantly as he observed Spike thru the bars.But that's not right; Spike couldn't be the victim. He had chosen to live in the sewers (naked), hadn't he? It would be the 'Spike' thing to do: live in defiance of Angel, stay under the radar and then when Angel would least be expecting it, pop back up and ruin his unlife. The victim was someone who needed his help, and Spike was perfectly capable of taking care of himself… well maybe not in his current state. In this state he clearly needed help. Lorne's voice suddenly popped into his head: _'The powers tell me you know who he is.'_ Angel walked closer to the cage. _'Well that's just not right, I mean the victim was burned.'_ He looked over and saw that there were remnants of burns all over Spikes chest. _'Well… that could be from anything'_ he thought a little less convincingly. Spike who was now panting heavily while clutching his twisted arm to his chest, just stared as he watched Angel pace the length of the cage. '_But the victim had been fed to a vampire. Ha! There's no way Spike could fake that.'_ He thought he had finally gotten him. That Spike had somehow done this to himself –probably pissed off the wrong demon- and there was still someone out there that needed him more. But then he looked at the arm that was cradled to Spikes chest. It was covered in bite marks. "No!" Angel gasped. The victim hadn't been fed _to_ a vampire; the victim _was_ a vampire. This vampire; the victim was Spike. "Oh God, Spike." He whispered as he opened the cage again. He felt an overwhelming need to hold Spike in his arms and protect him from every bad thing that had happened. _'He must have had to drink his own blood to keep from starving'_ he suddenly hated this A.R.F person very much.

When he attempted to approach Spike, he let out a vicious growl and morphed into demon face. Ready to attack if he came to close. A sudden pain shot thru Angel's chest; his childe didn't recognize him. He put his arms up in surrender and slowly backed out of the cage. "Take it easy Spike. See I'm leaving." He said as he made his way out of the cage and locked the door. He would have to keep him locked up for a while until he stopped acting so feral. He briefly wondered if this is how he had acted when Buffy had found him after he'd spent two hundred years in hell. His first few days back were still fuzzy, but he couldn't think about that now, Spike needed to feed.

He took one last look at the emaciated vampire and headed upstairs to look for blood. Unfortunately, since he hadn't been there in months; there was no blood. However, once he started looking in the cabinets for any kind of food, he found live rats, oatmeal and hot chocolate. He grimaced; rat blood wasn't very nutritious and judging by Spikes current state, he had been living off of rats for a while. But it would have to do for now.

He quickly grabbed a rat and began looking for a cup to put the blood in when a thought struck him: Spike always liked putting things in his blood. For some reason unknown to Angel, the younger vampire loved textured blood. So he decided he would cook some oatmeal in blood and feed it to the vampire. Spike would most likely like it, and the added vitamins and protein would do him some good. He opened a few more cabinets and found three nice sized rats. He quickly drained them into a pot and waited for it to boil.

While he waited he went to the basement to check on Spike. He was oddly quiet and Angel realized that the younger vampire had fallen asleep in the corner, curled up in a ball and still clinging to his injured arm. He was shivering, Angel sighed at the sight. He looked so frail; Angel hoped that the blood and oatmeal could help put some meat on his bones. Spike had never been this skinny, he was lean and muscular, but this was near anorexia. He swore to himself that if he ever found A.R.F he would kill him for this.

He returned upstairs when he smelled the blood boiling. It was an awful smell; sort of like he was trapped in an airtight room full of pennies and someone had turned the heater up to 102 degrees. He quickly lowered the heat and added the oats. It was cooked in less than a minute, he poured the contents into a cup and brought it down for the feral vampire to eat. Once he was downstairs, the smell instantly woke Spike. Angel wondered if his current state made him a lighter sleeper. _'It probably does.'_ he thought as he approached the cage. _'Being as weak as he is he can't afford to sleep to deep. No place is really safe.' _He reopened the cage and placed the cup in the center. Spike sat up and then didn't move a muscle; he sat there watching him. "Here you go. I brought you some food." He said as he slowly backed out of the cage. "I mixed some blood with some oatmeal, hopefully it will hold you over until tomorrow when I go stock up on supplies." Spike sniffed the air and could tell there was food, as soon as Angel finished backing out of the cage, he crawled over to the center and curiously sniffed the cup.

Angel winced as he watched Spike struggle to the center of the cage. He needed medical attention and soon. He stood outside the cage watching as Spike stuck his nose inside the cup and tried to lick the contents. Apparently it was too hot because the vampire yelped, jumped back and morphed into demon face preparing to attack the cup. Angel had to stifle a laugh. After a while he calmed down and tried the cup again. This time he licked it and seemed to like what he had tasted. He tried to stick his whole face in the cup but quickly realized it wasn't going to work, so he used his good hand instead. Angel watched as Spike would scoop out the oatmeal and then lick it off of his fingers. It was rather amusing. Once Spike began whining again, he realized he was done and was still hungry. "More huh?" he asked as Spike threw the cup at the bars. "I'll see what I can do…" _'Good thing I made enough for two'_ he thought as he climbed the stairs to refill the cup.

This time instead of entering the cage, he slipped the cup thru the bars and watched Spike crawl the distance to get to it. He finished it quicker then the first and then began to wine again. "Sorry. You're gonna have to wait, there's no more blood." He said with a sympathetic look on his face. He really wished he could do more, but there wasn't much more he could do until he got more blood. Spike seemed to understand the look and returned to his corner. Angel looked behind him and found the nest Spike had made. He decided he was going to sleep there tonight, just to make sure that Spike really was alive and he wasn't dreaming. He made himself comfortable in the covers, noticing that they smelled as bad as Spike did, but he was too tired to care. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but he heard shivering in the distance. Sighing heavily, he stood up and grabbed a blanket and pillow from beneath him and carried it over to the cage. He quickly opened the cage and quietly snuck in, he soon gave up on being quiet when he noticed Spike was surreptitiously watching him, but he did not try to move away. Angel placed the pillow by his head and then opened the blanket and carefully laid it over Spikes body. He crouched down and put out his hand to stroke Spikes arm in a reassuring way. He wanted the smaller vampire to know that he was safe here, but his arm hovered over Spikes body as he thought better of it, stood up, and quietly left the cage. He settled himself back into the remaining cousins and blankets on the floor and went to sleep.


	13. Trust

Spike watched as the creature approached. _'Keep still. Won't attack if still.'_ The creature seemed to be carrying things in its hands. Would these things bring him pain? He stayed as still as he could on the cold floor. Unfortunately his body betrayed him and he would shake slightly. The creature came closer and dropped something by his head. Still he didn't move. Thru the corner of his eye he could see the creature unfold a big piece of cloth. He started to fear that the creature would use it to hurt him, but then the creature carefully laid the cloth over his body. Spike was surprised to find that the cloth was soft and warm… and that it smelled like him. He realized that the creature had taken the blankets he had found a few days ago and put them in the cage so he would be more comfortable. _'Kind creature.'_

He didn't like being stuck in another cage, but at least this time, the creature that had him was kind. It had not hurt him, and it had given him some kind of food. He didn't know what the food was, but it had tasted good, and left his belly warm and full. He hadn't felt that 'full' feeling in a long time. The creature was still in the cage with him. It had crouched down, and one of its arms was above his body. Spike braced himself for a painful impact, but it never came. The kind creature soon stood up and left the cage, he watched as it settled down in the nest he had made when he first got here. Soon the creature had fallen asleep. Spike looked over at the thing next to him and put his head on it; soon he too was warm, comfortable, and fast asleep on the floor.

The next day Angel went to the butchers and stalked up on pig's blood. He then went to _Caritas _and paid Lorne to have a supply of human blood regularly delivered to the hotel. "So, did you ever find that poor guy in your visions?" Lorne asked just as Angel was about to leave.

"No." he lied. For some reason he didn't want Lorne to know about Spike. He had spent the past seven months believing the vampire was dead, now that he had found him, and had known what he had been thru during that time, he wanted to keep him as safe as possible. Besides A.R.F was till out there somewhere.

"So you just stopped looking?" he asked.

"No, I'm still looking. I just don't know what part of the sewers to look in." he lied again. And he knew Lorne could tell he wasn't telling the truth. That had been his job at Wolfram and Heart after all.

"Well do you wanna sing a few verses and maybe I can sniff out where you should be looking?" he asked.

"NO!" Angel nearly shouted. Lorne had a surprised, comical look on his face. "It's all right Lorne, I'm sure I'll find him soon." He felt bad about lying to the green demon. In his heart he knew Lorne would help him if he asked. But so far he didn't need any help with taking care of Spike, he was sure once he got some good blood into him, he would be back to normal in no time. "Well, I should get going. I'll come by later and check in on you." With that he waved bye to Lorne and left into the sewers.

Once Angel got back to the hotel, he quickly headed for the kitchen and put all of the pig's blood away. He then opened the basement door and went down the stairs to check on Spike. When he had left earlier, Spike had still been asleep, curled up in the blanket, and his injured hand was cradled to his chest and his other was wrapped tightly around the pillow on the floor. Angel had smiled fondly at the sight; (aside from the injured hand) some things never change. But now the younger vampire was pacing the cage frantically with a worried expression on his face. Angel frowned. "Hey Spike, what's wrong?" He asked as he stopped in front of the cage. Spike seemed to have just noticed him. He jumped a bit when he saw Angel and then whined.

Angel took the hint and then ran back upstairs to heat up some pig blood. He took one of the jars he had gotten from the butcher and poured some into a cup. He then placed the cup into the microwave and heated it up for two minutes. He drummed his fingers on top of the counter while he waited. The waiting and Spikes constant whining was making him impatient. He was relieved when the microwave went off. He grabbed the cup and went downstairs. Spike was still pacing.

"Here you go." He said as he placed the cup thru the bars. Spike was curious about the cup, so he crawled over and sniffed at it. Noticing that it was food he stuck his face into the cup and began to lap it up hungrily. After a while he could no longer reach the blood, so he knocked the cup over with his hand. The blood spilled out onto the cement floor and again Spike bent down farther and lapped it up. Once he was done, he moved the cup around with his face as if he were expecting more blood to magically appear. Angel went back upstairs and heated up two more cups of blood. One for him and the other for Spike. The regular feedings seemed to be doing Spike some good, but he was reluctant to feed the vampire too much at once for fear that his body might reject the quantity, especially after living so long off of so little. Once the second cup was done heating he carried both of them downstairs and passed one thru the bars to Spike.

Again he watched Spike crawl over to the cup. He walked over to the pile of blankets and sat down again. _'I'm gonna need to fix his injuries soon, but I still don't think he trusts me… maybe by the end of the week.'_ He thought as he watched Spike knock the cup over again and lap up the blood on the floor. He seemed to be full because he crawled over to his blanket and went to sleep. Angel drained the cup in his hands and then placed it beside him on the floor. He then got up and walked over to the cage, he was going to get the cup out of the cage and then go upstairs and put it in the sink. He opened the cage very slowly, and it began to creek loudly. Once he was inside and walked around Spike to get to the cup, he heard a low warning growl. Spike was obviously awake, but Angel knew that the younger vampire was too weak to actually fight him and he was just posturing. He ignored it and grabbed the cup. The growl got louder as he left the cage. He knew it was going to take Spike a while to trust him, he just hoped the while would come sooner rather than later. H really needed medical attention, it was obvious that both his arm and leg had healed wrong and needed to be reset. He also needed a haircut.

It took a few weeks and a lot of blood for Spike to finally trust him. He had stopped growling whenever Angel cleared empty cups from his cage, and he had stopped secretly watching him sleep. A steady diet of pig and human blood helped heal a few of the cuts and burns left on his skin. At first Spikes body had rejected the human blood. He had thrown it up and then began whining in distress as he desperately tried to consume it. So Angel had mixed the human blood with the pig's blood and it seemed to do the trick. Now he could drink them interchangeably.

Today was going to be the day Angel gave Spike the medical attention he needed. The only problem was, he had no idea how he was going to do it. It would definitely be easier if Spike were not conscious. That way if he ended up hurting him (and he knew from experience that resetting bones was painful) Spike would not run away or hurt himself further by trying to fight. Angel knew he was going to have to drug the blood. It would be the only way to ensure that Spike stayed still long enough for Angel to finish. He looked around and found some elephant tranquilizers in Wesley's office. _'This will be perfect, it will definitely buy me some time… I wonder if he can smell drugged blood…'_ Angel thought as he heated up a cup and put the tranquilizers in it. If that were the case then he would need to find something to distract him with. He started searching the liquor cabinet and found a nearly full bottle of whisky. _'This is gonna have to do."_ He thought as he grabbed a larger cup and filled it half way with the whisky, and the other half with human blood. He mixed it together with his finger, and then brought both cups down to the basement.

Spike appeared to be asleep, but Angel knew better. He entered Spikes cage and sat down next to him. He hid the cup with the drugs behind him and presented the younger vampire with the cup with the alcohol. At first he was curious, he sniffed the cup a few times but did not try to drink it. Angel poured a little out onto the palm of his hand and watched as Spike sniffed the offered hand then tentatively stuck out his tongue to taste. He seemed to like it, and he waited patiently for Angel to pour more into his hand. Angel chuckled to himself: Spike had never waited patiently for anything in his unlife. He continued to pour more blood into his hand and Spike continued to lick it clean. It felt strange feeding Spike like this, but a look into his glazed eyes told Angel that it had done the trick. Once he had finished the cup, Angel pulled out the second one. _'Here goes nothing.'_ He thought as he presented it to Spike.

Spike didn't even sniff the cup in front of him. The last one had tasted great, and he was sure this one would taste the same. So he greedily lapped it up. This kind creature seemed to have a lot of tasty food. He kept drinking but after a while he noticed he was getting sleepy. But that couldn't be right; he had just woken up when the creature was upstairs. He began to slow down as his eyes got droopy, he sniffed the blood and then he smelled it. The creature had put something in the food. It smelled like the same thing that was in the blood he had been given when the creature that liked to hurt him was hurting him. _'But this creature is kind.'_ Spike thought as he began to get sleepy and was barely able to keep his eyes open.

"Just give in Spike, I'm doing this for your own good." The creature appeared to be making noise. But Spike didn't notice, it suddenly became very hard for him to stay on all fours. He gave one last look at the creature and gave it a look that clearly said he recognized the betrayal. Then everything went dark.

As soon as Spike hit the ground Angel laid him out flat on the ground. A twinge of guilt ran thru him. He didn't like tricking Spike when he was in this condition, but it had been for the younger vampires own good. Hopefully once he was back to normal he would realize it. He left Spike on the floor and then went upstairs to grab his supplies. On the sofa in the lobby he had a bag full of bandages, sterilizing wipes and ointments. He grabbed it and then hurried back to the basement; he didn't know how good Spikes body was at fighting off sedatives.

When he got back downstairs he wasn't surprised to see Spike still passed out on the floor. He entered the cage and placed the bag down beside Spikes head. "Alright, lets see what we've got here." He said as he crouched down next to Spike. He decided to start with the dislocated hip. He placed his hands on either side and wasn't surprised when all he felt was solid bone. The blood had only begun to heal his cuts and bruises; he would need a lot more before he started gaining weight. A loud 'crack' echoed off the walls as Angel slid the hipbone back into place. "There, now you can walk normally again. Honestly Spike I don't know how you get into these situations. I mean I know _this_ isn't your fault." He said as he reached for the smaller mans twisted arm, he then noticed that the hand had been broken in a few places. He sighed heavily. "I'll tell you what childe, when I find the guy who did this to you I'll kill him." Another crack filled the room as he fixed the arm. He decided to leave the hand for later. Moving to the twisted leg, he thought he saw Spike stir. He wrote it off as a trick of the light, fixed the leg and began to bandage it. Now it was time for the hand. Angel winced; he would need to break most of the bones in the hand to make sure they healed properly. "I hope this works." He mumbled as he got to work.

Half an hour later, Angel had broke and reset every last bone in Spikes hand. He then grabbed some splints and bandaged his hand along with his arm. "Okay, you should feel better in no time… now what am I going to do about your hair?" he wondered aloud as he looked at the matted dreads that lay on top of Spikes head. They would need to be cut off. "You're going to hate me for this…" he said as he reached behind himself for the scissors. Lifting Spikes head into his lap he gently stroked his thumb against the sharp cheekbones. "I mean; it's not like you don't already hate me. So I guess I'll just be adding fuel to the fire." He chuckled softly as he began to cut away at the matted hair.

To be honest, he missed the fire. He missed the old Spike. The Spike he had hoped he had found in the basement instead of the victim that had haunted his dreams. But that wasn't the hand life had dealt him. Now he had to make sure that he could help Spike in any way possible. He didn't really know how, but there must be some explanation for the younger vampires strange behavior. This couldn't all be A.R.F's doing. Spike was a lot of things, but wasn't careless enough to be caught by some maniac.

The more hair Angel cut from the center of Spike's head, the more uncomfortable he became. He had noticed that at the center of the beehive the area under the hair seemed to be red. He finished cutting out the center and found a large area that had been hidden underneath the mass of overgrown hair. It was red and seemed to be full of fluid. Angel had a sudden flashback to his first time in the alley looking for Spike. He had smelled his blood around the dragon's body. He must have been bleeding from his head. Angel poked at the area. As he suspected, it was full of fluid. He was about to prod it more when he suddenly heard a low threatening growl. Spike had woken up, and he was not happy.


	14. Bath

A sharp pain had woken Spike. He found himself on the floor in the creature's arms; it was hurting him. But that wasn't right; this creature had never hurt him before. He suddenly remembered drinking some really tasty blood, followed by some blood that made him sleepy. The creature had tricked him; it had given him the same kind of blood that made him vulnerable. He gave a low warning growl at first, but the creature held onto him tighter. He began to struggle, but was quickly overpowered. The creature was stronger than he was. His body started to shake, what had the creature done to him while he had been sleeping? Had it hurt him like the other ones had?

He gave his body a self-check as the creature's grip lessened. There was a dull pain in one of his arms, and one of his legs. The middle part of his body hurt too, but not as much as it had some time ago. Then there was his head… but that always hurt. The creature sat Spike up and ran one of its hands up and down his spine. He growled again; he didn't want to be touched. The creature seemed to ignore him. He knew the creature knew he was weak, but as it turned him around to face it, he quickly morphed into demon face and bit hard.

Angel yelled as Spike bit his hand. He hadn't been expecting that, he probably should have, since he had betrayed the younger vampire, but it had been for his own good. He yanked his hand away forcefully; luckily Spike had left the skin virtually intact with the exception of the two holes that were currently gushing blood. Spike was now crouched on the floor in a defensive stance, prepared to attack at any moment. His lips were curled back and he was snarling. Angel decided that now would be a good time to collect the supplies and leave the cage. "Okay, okay. I'm going." He said as he began to back out of the cage. Apparently he wasn't moving fast enough for Spike because the younger vampire snarled louder. "I'm going Spike!" he practically yelled.

As soon as he closed the door, Spike crawled to his favorite corner and began to shake. While the image disturbed Angel, he was pleased to see that the younger vampire had an easier time moving around and was not limping as much. He wondered if Spike noticed it too. He turned his back to Spike and put the bag of supplies on a nearby table. He grabbed the disinfectant and began to clean his hand. The bite had been deep, but it didn't go all the way through the skin; which Angel was thankful for. Knowing it would heal as soon as he drank some blood, he decided to put a band-aid on it anyway. He turned around to look at Spike; he knew he had destroyed the trust he had built with him and only hoped bringing him blood would fix it. He watched as Spike lifted the un-bandaged arm and started to drink from it. "DON'T DO THAT!" Angel yelled. It was never good for a vampire to drink his own blood. It was ok in times that the vampire was starving, but if it happened to often then eventually the body would start to reject other blood, then eventually it's own. Angel had never seen this happen, but Darla had told him about it the first time he had returned to her after he had been cursed. At first Spike stared at him. Shocked and wide eyed. Then he started to growl threateningly. "Guess I better get you some food." He muttered as he grabbed the bag and went upstairs.

He returned a few minutes later with two cups full of blood. One was wider and rounder than the other; he figured it would be easier for Spike to lap the blood out of this cup than the others. He walked over to where Spike was huddled in the corner, the closer he got, the smaller Spike tried to make himself look. It saddened Angel, everyday he spent with Spike was a reminder that this was not the Spike he had come to somewhat tolerate. He needed to do more to bring him back, but he had no idea what. He had fixed the injuries and with a proper diet (which Angel would be sure Spike got) he would be good as new in no time. At this point, the only thing that really worried him was the head injury. He had no idea how it had gotten there, or why it was so swollen. He would need to inspect it more, but it would have to wait until the trust between him and Spike was rebuilt.

"Here, eat this." He said huskily as he slid the cup through the bars. The younger vampire looked up at him with one eyebrow raised, and his head tilted to the side. The look was purely 'Spike' and it clearly asked: "Are you crazy?" Angel chuckled at the look. "Okay, fine." He said as he continued to stare at the other vampire. It was clear he didn't trust Angel to give him un-drugged blood. "How about I drink some and you drink the rest?" he asked, Spike continued to stare at him. He put his hand back into the cage and pulled out the cup. Then he turned to the side so he could be sure Spike saw him doing this, he lifted the cup to his mouth and took a mouthful. He gulped loudly, placed the cup in front of Spike and waited.

Spike was hesitant at first, but after fifteen minutes he sniffed the cup. It didn't smell like anything was in there but blood, and the creature _had_ drunk out of it. He tentatively stuck out his tongue not detecting anything foul he began to lap it up hungrily. Half way through he hadn't felt strange or sleepy, so he figured it was safe. Once he was finished, he stared back up at the creature; it had a pleased look on its face. Spike noticed that the pain he had felt earlier had dulled considerably. Well except for his head. Whenever the other creature had made him vulnerable like that he would always be in pain for days, sometimes the pain never stopped. _'Creature helped?"_

Angel sat staring at Spike; he hadn't knocked over the cup this time, so Angel figured he had made the right choice in giving him a larger cup. He refused to give him a bowl. Spike was not an animal even though he has been acting and living like one for months. He did not want to degrade the younger vampire any further than A.R.F already had. He had to believe that Spike would be back to normal soon, it was the only thought that got him through most days seeing him this way. The younger vampire was staring at him with a questioning look on his face. "Do you want more?" Angel asked. He hadn't been expecting a verbal answer. In fact, he had given up on expecting any kind of verbal answer or human communication of any form from Spike within the first few days of finding him. He had expected the smaller man to knock over the cup like he usually did. However this time, Spike stood up and walked to the other side of the cage where he had left his pillow and blanket. _'Well that's good, he can stand up straight now… and walk'_ he was pleased to note that there was no limp. Angel continued to watch as Spike rolled around in the covers. At first Angel thought he was tired and about to go to sleep, but then he realized that the other vampire was marking his territory. He wasn't worried, Spike wasn't strong enough to start showing real dominant behaviors yet, but if Angel couldn't get him back to normal before that happened then he didn't know what he was going to do when the time came. A healthy Spike was really strong; he had only ever beaten Angel once in a fight, but still. But this Spike would be a whole other animal, he was fueled by animal instinct while the Spike Angel had gotten to know was fueled by anger and a need to prove himself. He didn't know if he could actually win in a fight with this Spike.

A few days later Angel had started to think that Spike trusted him again. He would sit in the cage with him and just talk (several times a day), at first the other vampire would stay in the farthest corner away from him, but soon he would come closer and eventually rest his head in Angel's lap. Angels voice seemed to have a claming effect on him. He seemed to be content in Angel's presence and would even let Angel touch him. The older vampire was glad of the change; he felt he could finally give Spike some form of comfort while he was stroking his arm. A few times he had tried to get a better look at the bump on Spikes head, but every time he did he heard the smaller vampire growl, so he decided to leave it be (for now).

Over the next few weeks Angel was glad to see that Spike was getting stronger and started to gain some weight. A steady diet of pig and human blood seemed to be doing him good. He was a little disturbed that Spike still preferred crouching on all fours instead of walking upright, but he figured by now it was force of habit. All of his injuries had been healed, but the position appeared to be the most comfortable for him. Now that he seemed to be used to his surroundings and Angels presence, Angel felt it was time to permanently let Spike out of the cage. He was tired of sleeping in the basement and didn't think that the younger vampire would be a flight risk. He seemed to like it here in the hotel.

One morning, Angel left a sleeping Spike in the basement as he went out and ordered some hot wings. He thought Spike might need a little convincing (just incase he really liked the basement; after all that had been where Angel had found him). Remembering that he loved human food, he thought the younger vampire would see it as a treat. He returned forty-five minutes later with a bucket full of assorted chicken wings (hot wings, Buffalo wings, wings dipped in honey mustard sauce. Angel had it covered). Part of it was because he knew Spike liked variety, the other part was because Angel had no clue what the other man liked. They hadn't spent much time in the past eight years trying to get to know each other again. He knew there had to be something in this box that Spike would like.

"Spike! I've got something for you!" he called as he descended the stairs to the basement. He watched as Spike sniffed the air curiously. Chuckling to himself, he left the box on the stairs and opened the cage door. Then he casually turned around and picked up the blankets from the floor. Always keeping a close eye on Spike through his peripheral vision. Behind him, Spike had crouched over to the open gate. Angel was careful not to make any sudden movements that would scare him into running back to the far wall. Spike tentatively put an arm out of the cage, and stared at Angel's back. Angel continued to fuss over nothing and was pleased when Spike appeared right beside him. "Want to go upstairs?" he asked with a smile on his face. The other vampire just stared at him with his head cocked to one side. "Come-on." He gestured with his arm for Spike to follow and went to the stairs, pulled out a chicken wing and waved it in front of him. He watched as Spike began to salivate. He slowly made it up the stairs with Spike following close on his heels. For a second he thought about stopping in the kitchen, but Spike needed a bath so he lead him up the stairs to room 217.

As soon as the smaller vampire had entered the room, Angel closed and locked the door. He left Spike with the box of wings in the living room as he made his way to the bathroom and started to draw a bath. He wondered how long it had been since Spike had taken a bath. He had done his best the past few weeks to ignore the smell, but his vampire senses would not allow him to do it any longer. And he knew if it was that bad for him, he could only imagine how horrible it was for Spike. The water began to fill the tub, he looked around for shower gel or bubble bath, but all he found was a bar of soap and a washcloth. It would have to do. He returned to the living room to get Spike. As soon as he walked into the room he bust into a fit of laughter.

Spike was sitting on the floor with the box of chicken wings on top of his head, and several chicken bones scattered all around his body. As soon as he heard Angel laugh he poked his head out from under the box, his face was covered in sauce. "I guess it's a good thing you're getting a bath, huh." He said as he walked over to remove the box from Spikes head. "What am I going to do with you?" he asked as he stroked the side of the smaller mans cheek. As he pulled his hand back he noticed a bit of sauce was stuck to his thumb so he licked it off "Come-on, lets get you into the bathroom." He motioned for the other vampire to follow and he did. As soon as Spike entered the bathroom, he started to sniff everything. When Angel put his hand into the tub to test the water, he didn't notice Spike standing right behind him. He was suddenly pushed into the tub. When he resurfaced, he was soaked from head to toe, his close were ruined and he was pissed. He sputtered to get the water out of his mouth and looked up at Spike, who was chuckling softly. "Typical! I try to help you out and you –being the ungrateful snot that you are- throw it back in my face." He glared at Spike who had a mischievous look on his face. It was so much like the old Spike that he lost all of his edge and grabbed him by the waste and dragged him into the tub. Plus with all of the assorted dipping sauces covering his face, he looked like an overgrown kid. There was no way he could stay mad.

Spike was stunned into stillness as his body made contact with the warm water. Angel used that to his advantage and began to disgard his clothes. He then grabbed the washcloth and began to soap it up. As soon as it was good and soapy he placed the cloth to Spikes chest and began to move it in a circular motion. Spike appeared to be enjoying the attention because he began to lean into Angels touch, his eyes were half closed, and he began to purr loudly. "You like that huh?" Angel asked as he continued his ministrations. Spike turned his head into Angel's neck and began to lick the length of his jugular.

It felt nice, real nice. Angel was beginning to give into sensation when he realized what was happening. "What are you doing?" Angel asked as he attempted to push Spike off of him. But Spike had turned in the tub and was now straddling Angel's hips while holding his arms down and continuing to lick his neck. He began to moan deeply. It was clearly a dominant position, and Spike was using it to his advantage. To Angel's horror the feeling of being semi dominated by Spike was beginning to turn him on. And once Spike started licking his nipples they instantly hardened on contact along with his shaft. The warm water they were sitting in didn't help matters either. Once Spike began rubbing his body lengthwise along Angels, he couldn't take it anymore. "No Spike! Stop!" Angel yelled as he managed to push Spike off of him. The younger vampire looked disappointed as Angel moved over to let the water out of the tub.

"I'm sorry, I can't do this." He said as he turned on the shower. Spike still needed to be cleaned. "If you were… well _you_ then maybe… you know if we could get over the fact that we both hate each other, then okay, we could do this. But I can't take advantage of you like this. You aren't in your right mind Spike. I just… I can't do it, I'm sorry." He said. Looking down and seeing that Spike was hard too he repeated, "I'm sorry." He settled back behind Spike and the rest of the bath went on without incident. Until the very end when Angel was getting ready to exit the tub- which now had a dark ring around it. As soon as the water was turned off, Spike had thrown himself at an unsuspecting Angel. He ended up pinning him down to the bottom of the tub. "Spike, get off." He said weakly as Spike once again began to lick his neck. The movement of his tongue was slow and sensual. Then while still licking Angel's neck, he used a free hand and grabbed Angels shaft, which was still hard from earlier. Angel began to squirm under his grasp. _'This can not be happening.'_ Angel though in agony as Spike began pumping his shaft in a slow steady motion. He couldn't use Spike in his current condition for sex; it wasn't right. _'Well technically he's taking advantage of you'_ said a small voice in the back of his head. Spike had started to pick up the pace; Angel couldn't take it any more, what Spike was doing to him felt amazing, and he began to give into the sensation. He hadn't felt anything like it in years. His hips began to thrust in time with Spikes hand movements; as more time passed, the thrusts became more frantic. Spike was looking down at him with a wicked, somewhat hungry look in his eyes. Angel closed his eyes as he began to let go. He heard a soft whimper as he come all over Spike's hand. After a while he realized it had come from him. He began panting as a wave of contentment washed over him. His eyes opened slightly and he saw Spike pumping his own shaft while kneeling on top of him. His eyes widened as he heard Spike grunt and saw him come over his chest.

Spike bent over and began licking the cum off of Angel's belly. Once he was finished he lay down on top of Angel and began licking his neck, then after a while he began licking his face. He finally nuzzled into the crook of Angels neck and fell asleep. Angel decided it would be okay for them to sleep there for a while. After that orgasm he didn't think he could move for at least half an hour anyway. As he began to follow the younger vampire into sleep a distant thought crossed his mind: had he been claimed?


	15. The Hardest Thing To Say

As Angel had suspected, Spike now thought Angel belonged to him. Over the past three weeks, not a day went by where the smaller vampire hadn't attempted to 'reclaim' Angel while he was taking a shower. Part of it was his own fault; his starved body easily gave into its need for physical connection. He let Spike claim him this way. He let Spike follow him into the shower. He didn't bother locking the bathroom door because he _wanted_ Spike in there with him. And most importantly: he let Spike touch him, over and over again. He let Spike bring him to completion each time.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew it was wrong. He knew he shouldn't use the smaller vampire in this way to bring himself relief, but somewhere closer to the front of his mind he told himself this wasn't Spike. Sure it was Spike's body, and it smelled like him, but nothing about this vampire he had been living with for months said 'Spike'. So he convinced himself that it was okay. As long as he didn't violate Spike's body, he was doing no wrong, and in no way taking advantage of Spikes current situation. Besides, this Spike seemed to think that he was in charge, and Angel didn't have the strength or will to try and correct him. He knew he would need to soon (either correct him by expressing _his_ dominance or fixing whatever had caused him to behave like this in the first place), before the smaller vampire started to become more physically aggressive.

Besides the constant 'reclaiming' Spike seemed content in letting Angel do what he wanted. The day after he was first claimed he trimmed the rest of Spikes matted hair (he was careful around the area with the bump); he seemed to like the extra attention, he had purred loudly, and sat patiently waiting for Angel to finish. That was another painful reminder that this was not his childe he was dealing with. He had never known Spike or William the Bloody to be still for even a minute when he was not asleep… and even then he would move around and kick.

For the most part, Angel would leave Spike in his room while he went out to run errands. The errands consisted of constantly going to the butchers (the healthier Spike got, the more blood he consumed), and helping the helpless. He had gotten back into working for the powers, this time there was no promise of becoming human, but Angel didn't care. He needed more interaction. He couldn't keep talking to Spike because all he was really doing was talking to himself.

So he went out every night. He'd slay a few demons, dust a few vampires, and rescue damsels (and even sometimes men) in distress. It felt right. He was finally doing some good; he had found the victim and was slowly nursing him back to health. The fact that Spike had been like this for close to a year disturbed him immensely. He knew that either something drastic needed to happen soon, or he would need to find someone to help. He had no idea what kind of effect Spikes current state would have on him once he was back to normal. He hoped that it would be mild. That once the younger vampire did return to normal it would be like he was in a slight fog, and that he wouldn't have residual traces of the animal inside him. He wanted Spike to finally be able to use his words. It had been so long since he had heard the younger man speak- God he missed the sound of his voice- that was another reason he had to get out of the hotel: voices. He needed to hear someone else's voice besides his own. He was going stir crazy having conversations with himself. It reminded him of the time when the First had tried to get him to commit suicide. He would talk to ghosts of his past, and everyone would look at him like he was crazy because in reality there was no one there.

Over the next few weeks, Angel would stay out later and later, just barely making it to the hotel before the sun rose. And Spike was becoming more and more agitated. Once Angel mused that his childe was acting like a worried parent impatiently waiting for their teenager to come home, and once they did they would be grounded. Usually whenever he came in late Spike would growl at him, then wrestle him to the ground and while in human face bite his ear. It wasn't painful, most of the time Angel didn't even put up a fight. The younger vampire had no idea how arousing it was. After the bite, the younger vampire would tear off Angel's clothes and 'reclaim' him again. It usually ended with Angel falling asleep naked on his bed, and Spike curling up next to him a few minutes later.

Tonight, however was a different story. Angel had gotten in at 5:54; by the time he had closed the door to the entrance of the hotel his hair had begun to smoke. On his way up the stairs he heard a strange noise coming from his bedroom. It sounded like a loud crash. Was someone in there with Spike? He didn't hear any voices, but he raced up the stairs anyway. "Spike are you okay!" he yelled as he barged through the door to see what was going on. To his surprise he found the sofa was turned upside-down, the television looked to be broken, the bookshelf that once stood so proudly against the wall was now on the floor; it had been shredded to peaces. There were remnants of the shower curtain all over the place, and on top of his bed was a pile that looked like white snow. Angel instantly recognized it as the contents of his pillow. Spike had trashed his room.

Angel sighed heavily as he looked at the defiant vampire sitting in front of his bed. Destruction. Now _that_ was more like the Spike he knew. It never failed. Whenever his childe was agitated or bored, he would turn to destruction. And nothing was ever 'safe'; he took a moment to scan the room again. Judging by the amount of things on the floor, Spike had only been at it for three minutes. He had a strange feeling that if he hadn't stopped to tie both shoes before entering the hotel he could have avoided this.

Spike growled at his pet as it entered the room. It just didn't seem to understand, it was his property and it would need to learn how to obey the rules. It knew it wasn't allowed to stay out late, especially not late enough to when he smelled the fire in his nose. He knew from experience his pet wasn't safe out there. There were other creatures that looked like it out there, and they were dangerous. They could easily capture his pet without him knowing and he would have no way to stop it, he also would have no way to know it had happened. Then there was the light. The light burned, and the burn hurt. And he knew it didn't like light either because this place was always dark. His pet just didn't seem to understand. There was only one safe place and it was here with him. He was only trying to keep his pet safe, and he knew that meant claiming it again.

His pet had closed the door and was now speaking in its language. Spike never understood what it was trying to say, only lately, he thought he did. Like now, one word clearly stood out. Actually it had been standing out for a while now: Spike.

He watched Spike turn on him, ready to start wrestling. He put his arms up in surrender. "Calm down Spike." He began as he slowly made his way to the living room. "It's okay, see I'm fine." He pointed to the top of his head where there was still a little bit of smoke rising. "This will cool down in a minute." He continued as Spike began stalking him, trapping him in a corner. _'Here we go again'_ he mentally sighed as Spike grabbed him by the waist. This time Angel resisted. "Let go of me!" he yelled as he put his hand on the smaller vampires shoulder and tried to force him down. He was so concentrated on his task that he didn't hear the door open.

"Hey! What in the HECK is going on here?" said a voice to the side of Angel.

He looked over and saw that Lorne was in the room with them. "Lorne!" he yelled as Spike had stopped struggling against him. The smaller vampire suddenly froze, then just as quickly ran and hid in the bathroom. Angel chased after him, Lorne following on his heels. "Hey, hey, it's okay. See? Its just Lorne." Angel said in a soothing voice to try and coax Spike out from behind the toilet. He watched as the smaller vampire began to shake violently.

"Who is that?" Lorne asked as he watched the naked, pale creature shake in terror.

"Lets go." Angel said as he pushed Lorne out of the bathroom, then closed door behind him. He then continued to lead the green demon all the way down the stairs and into the hotel lobby.

"Angel, what's going on? I haven't seen you in months and I came here today to ask you about that poor guy in your visions. And I find you in here doing God knows what with whoever that was in there." Lorne said as soon as they were in front of the front desk. Angel kept a close ear out for Spike and hoped that the Host's unexpected visit hadn't been a set back in his progress. He would hate to have to start at square one to get the smaller vampire to trust him again.

He took a deep un-needed breath. "It's Spike," he began. But before he could finish Lorne cut him off.

"What about him?" he asked plainly. "Did he survive?"

"The guy upstairs; the guy in my visions. It's Spike. I've been taking care of him since December."

Lorne stood there with his mouth agape for what felt like eons. In reality, it could have only been forty-five seconds. He gasped. "That's Spike?" again he finished with his mouth agape. "But… but what happened to him?"

"What do you _think_ Lorne, he was tortured by that A.R.F person…monster." He corrected himself. A.R.F was definitely not a person; he may have been human, but in Angel's eyes he was a monster.

"What? But when I asked you back in January if you had found him… you said you hadn't. Y-you lied to me." Lorne said in a hurt voice. "I could have tried to help."

"I know, and I'm sorry Lorne, I really am. It's just I didn't think he would be like this for long, and he was already so traumatized; you should have seen him when I first found him. He would huddle into a corner and try to make himself seem as small as possible, and they had starved him. He had to drink his own blood for months and then he was living off rats and I didn't want to tell anyone cuz I didn't know what to say and I couldn't risk A.R.F finding out where Spike was in case he came back to kill him. And I'm sorry Lorne, I was just trying to protect him." Angel rambled.

"So why was he trying to hide from me?" he asked.

"He doesn't recognize you from the law firm. He didn't recognize me at first… actually I still don't think he knows who I am, but it took a long time for him to trust me. And you're a big _green_ demon with horns! He's scared. For the past few months I've been the only one here with him."

"Angel-cake, he needs help. I mean he can't possibly stay lik-"

"I know he needs help!" Angel's yelling cut him off. "What do you think I've been trying to do since I found him?" his arms were now flailing around.

"Well, do you think I can have some healers whip up a potion and that might do the trick?" asked the greed demon that was now sitting on top of the front desk, his legs swinging back and forth like a child.

"I'm not drugging him again Lorne." Angel said seriously. "I had to do it a while ago so I could fix his injuries. You should have seen him when I found him here; he was covered in cuts and bruises, not to mention bite marks. He had a broken arm and leg, his hip was dislocated and one of his hands was completely broken, and he has this big ass bump on his head that I can't _do_ anything about because he won't let me touch it." He collapsed into the desk chair and Lorne had to turn around to face him.

"Bite marks?" he asked.

"The monsters that had him, they didn't feed him, and if they did then they didn't feed him enough. He had to drink from his own arm."

"Poor guy." Lorne said; his voice was full of sympathy. Angel was looking distraught so Lorne dismounted from the desk and walked over to put a hand on his shoulder.

"He'd been living like that for months Lorne. So I thought: 'Hey, maybe if I got some blood in him he'll be back to normal.' So I gave him blood. He started to get stronger, his cuts and bruises started to heal up, but he was still so feral. And I could tell he couldn't move without being in pain. So I thought: 'Okay, if I fix his injuries, he won't be in anymore pain and he'll snap out of it." Lorne's hand was now going up and down his back. "So I did, but he didn't. Not really. Occasionally he'll tilt his head to the side and give me a look, and it's such a 'Spike' look that it gives me hope that maybe I'm doing the right thing, maybe if I keep working at it he'll come back to me. And sometimes I think it's just a look, and Spikes not really here. That guy upstairs Lorne; he's _not_ Spike, he _looks_ like Spike, he _smells_ like Spike, but he's not. But on occasion he'll _act_ like Spike. He's been trying to fight me for dominance lately and that is such a Spike thing to do! He's been doing it for the past hounded-plus years. And then today… while I was out patrolling, I guess he got bored, or pissed off. He trashed my room." he tilted his head upwards so he was now looking Lorne straight in the eye. "That guy in my bathroom is not Spike, but he acts so much like him sometimes that I don't know what to do. And I can't stake him, because it wouldn't be fair. The guy upstairs didn't do anything that he would need to be staked for, and even if he did I wouldn't stake him anyway, I can't stake him…" he trailed off.

He seemed to be lost in thought so Lorne spoke softly to try and coax him back. "Why can't you stake him Angel? Besides the fact that he doesn't deserve to be."

Angel took a deep breath, to gain the strength he needed to say the words out loud of something that he's always felt but never had the courage to say. "I can't stake him Lorne because if I do then I will truly be alone. And no matter what I've said these past few years; I don't want to be alone."

Lorne couldn't help but feel sad at Angel's admission. He was about to say something encouraging, but Angel cut him off before the words came out.

"And I talk to him every day, and I feel like I'm going crazy and I'm talking to myself. And I know Connor trapped me at the bottom of the ocean for a few months a while back, but I've never felt more alone then when I'm up in my room talking to Spike and its like he's not even there."

"Well you always have me Angel-pie." Lorne said as he backed away from Angel and headed to the front door. He stopped in the middle of the lobby and said: "I'll go find some witch doctors that can hopefully whip up some mo-jo and we can have the old Spike back in a jiffy. We'll work out how to feed it to him later."

"Thanks Lorne." Angel called as he watched the green demon close the door behind him. Angel went into the kitchen to heat up some blood for spike and himself. He carried the mugs up the stairs and cautiously entered his room. "Spike?" he called. "It's me… Lorne's gone now. Its okay." He searched the room, but didn't find Spike. He decided the only other place the younger vampire could be was inside the bathroom. Sure enough, once Angel entered the bathroom, Spike was still hiding behind the toilet shaking violently. He quickly placed the cups on the edge of the tub and rushed over to Spike. The younger vampire seemed relieved when his eyes fell on Angel, but he was still trembling, so Angel reached out a hand and started stroking his arm to try and sooth him. It took a while, but eventually the trembling died down, Angel took the opportunity grab a mug of blood (he didn't care who's) to tilt Spikes head back and feed the smaller man. He finished one cup but wouldn't take the other. Angel gathered the unresisting body in his arms and watched as his childe began to drift off to sleep. As soon as he was sure Spike was out, he picked him up and carried him into the bedroom. Placing him on the other side of his once favorite pillow (Spike always knew how to hit him where it hurt), he shoved the stuffing over the edge and climbed in beside him. He placed his arm around the smaller frame and quickly fell asleep. Before he did, he mused that Lorne finding out was a good thing, and hoped that the potion the green demon would soon bring was strong enough to help Spike get back to normal.


	16. Potions

Spike woke later that night wrapped in his pets arms. He hadn't been a good master today. He had ran and hid when that miss-colored creature had shown up. He left his pet in danger. Spike turned his body so he was now facing his sleeping pet. It had protected him. A fact that did not surprise Spike at all, it seemed his pet has always been protecting him. It fed him, kept him warm, made most of his pain go away, it even bathed him. He reached his hand towards the creature's head and began stroking its hair. As the stroking continued it began to smile in its sleep. This made the corners of Spike's mouth turn up slightly. The expression felt strange on his face, and yet it also felt oddly familiar. He decided to stop anyway. He bent down and licked the side of his pets face '_Good pet'_ he thought as he nuzzled into its shoulder. The familiar scent lulled him back to sleep.

By the time Lorne had come with the potion, it was the end of June. He had explained to Angel that it had taken so long because the witch doctor he went to had to tweak it just right so that it tasted like pigs blood. They had both agreed that it would be better if the potion smelled and tasted like food. Angel was assured that there weren't any tranquilizers in the blood, so Spike would not fall asleep and would not feel like Angel had betrayed him again. "And you're sure it will work?" Angel asked as he looked at then sniffed the bottle skeptically.

"Of course I am Angel-cake." Lorne said in a cheerful voice. "Besides, have I ever brought you a potion that I swore would do some good, but ended up being nothing but trouble before?" He looked at the vampire who was giving him a pointed look. At first he didn't understand why Angel was looking at him like that but then he remembered what had happened with Cordelia a few years ago. "Don't answer that."

"Fine." Angel said. "What's this stuff supposed to do anyway?" he asked.

"Well, if I understand my Murafalah right –and trust me sweetie I'm a little rusty- it's either supposed to snap him out his current state so he returns to normal, or give him two heads."

"WHAT!" Angel yelled as his head snapped up and he was now meeting Lorne's eye.

"I told you I'm a little rusty." He said defensively as he placed his arms up in surrender. "One of the words the doc used was 'corruskupack' which in Murafalah either means 'return to normal' or 'two heads'. It's a tricky language. Hey but I'm sure it's the normal." He finished quickly.

"You'd better be sure because if Spike grows two heads I'm going to have to kill you. And I'm not talking the 'beheading' type of kill- cuz I know your head will grow back. I'm talkin' the stab you in the heart type of kill." Lorne had a comical 'shocked' look on his face and Angel continued. "I will take a sword and stab it through your butt cheek."

"Tou-chy" Lorne whistled. "I don't know why you have to be so mean; I'm just trying to help."

Angel sighed. "I know Lorne, and I'm sorry. It's just… as soon as you said that I just got this image in my head of a Spike with two heads, and he's back to normal and talking to himself all night, plotting how to drive me even more crazy." He said half joking.

"It'll work Angel-pie. Trust me."

"Fine." Angel said. He started to walk up the stairs to his room. Lorne had begun to follow. "No, stay here."

"Why?" he asked.

"He's only seen you once and you remember how well that turned out."

"Oh, right. Yeah I better stay here… okay well, when it works… tell him I say 'hi'… or you know, you can call me up there."

"Okay Lorne, if it works I'll let you up to see him." He said as he continued to climb the stairs, bottle in hand.

"It will work." Lorne called after him. Angel was at almost at his door when his vampire senses heard Lorne whisper: "It has to." He knew the Host was worried about both him and Spike. He knew that sometime in the last year, the Host and Spike had become friends; he knew that they had bonded over alcoholic beverages, and singing. Neither one of the two had said anything to him about it, but he had known once Spike had become corporeal. He felt a bit guilty. He had known that Spike would need friends (or allies); he hadn't known anyone besides Angel when he was first brought to W&H. He himself hadn't done anything to make life easier on the smaller vampire, but then he and Lorne had started hanging out and Angel was happy… well thankful would be a more appropriate word. It made sense for the pair to become friends. They had the drinking and singing in common and they were both charismatic, their personalities meshed. After all, like attracts like. Neither one of them had mentioned the bond to Angel however. He figured it was because Spike thought he didn't care about what the younger vampire was up to or who he was hanging out with, and Lorne probably though –given Angels apparent dislike of Spike- it would be better for their friendship if he never mentioned it. But he had known; he always made it a point to know everything that was going on with Spike.

He opened the door and walked into his room. Spike was lying on top of the bed, still naked. Angel had tried to get clothes on the smaller man, but the only clothes he had at the hotel belonged to him. Needless to say they were too big and practically fell off the smaller frame. By now he had given up, besides, he secretly though that if clothes weren't mandatory in today's society, Spike would be one of those people proudly walking around naked. "Hey Spike I got something for you." He said as he heated the bottle up in the microwave. At the sound of his name he sat up and ran over to Angels side. He still preferred to be crouched on all fours. Angel had tried to correct his posture a few months ago, but the smaller vampire was stubborn and did whatever he wanted. Typical. "Here you go." He said as he poured the contents into a cup and placed it on the floor for Spike to drink.

The younger vampire sniffed the cup curiously and then made a face. For a moment Angel had begun to panic. He thought Spike could smell the potion. But then he remembered that Spike didn't really like pig's blood. Definitely not as much as he liked human blood. But he tolerated it. Angel was pleased once Spike started to drink. He wanted to make sure Spike drank all of it so he stood there watching. A few seconds after Spike had finished the cup, he threw himself across the floor and began shaking violently. "Spike!" Angel yelled as he rushed over to the smaller mans side. He gathered him in his arms and held him until the shaking stopped. _'Come on, come on. Please be okay.'_ He thought as he held Spike harder. The smaller man suddenly stopped shaking and froze. "Spike?"

Peters was walking down a main street with his temperature reader. Finn had been busting his ass for months because of hostile 17. He wanted Peters to find him; that was clear. And every day when he came back with a negative report on the whereabouts of the stupid vampire, he would get punched in the gut for his trouble. Sometimes when Finn was really pissed off, he would kick him while he was down gasping for breath. Peters figured that if this was the way it was going to be, he would need to build a tighter six-pack. Some days he couldn't even move because Finn had kicked him so hard. It wasn't his fault he had lost the hostile in the sewers, there was no functioning tracking device in its head anymore, so there was no effective way of tracking it.

He scanned the nearby buildings. Most of them were abandoned; very few were occupied. Peters kept walking with the reader in front of him. _'Humans, humans, cats, humans, ugh lots of rats, humans, humans, hel-low'_ he thought as he pointed the machine towards a window and the reading came back as two moving bodies at room temperature. _'Must be vampires.'_ He thought as he looked at where the machine had been pointed. It was an abandoned hotel. The curtains in the room it had been pointed to were closed tightly, and looking around he noticed that the broken windows in front had been boarded up. _'Definitely vampires.'_ He thought giddily as he looked at the name on the outside of the building. He then noticed that he had lost Hostile 17 somewhere in this area months ago in the sewers. Could he be in there? If he was, then who was he with? He ran all the way back to headquarters.

"Sir, I think I found it." Peters practically yelled as he burst into Riley's office. He was practically out of breath.

"What are you talking about Peters?" Riley didn't even look up as he continued to do his paperwork.

"Hostile 17 sir. I think I found him." That got his attention. He looked up from the mountain of papers on his desk into Peters' eyes. He glared at the younger man as he waited for him to finish telling him where he had found Spike. Peters didn't seem to get the hint.

"Well…" he prompted.

"Oh, right. Uh, I think I found him." Peters repeated. Riley was starting to get agitated.

"You've already said that. Now tell me WHERE did you find him."

"Oh. Well remember when he took off…" Peters started but Riley soon cut him off.

"You mean when you let him escape." He corrected.

"Yes sir." Peters mumbled. "Well you told me to go look for him in the sewers. And I did sir I was down there for months. Well I thought I had found it at some point, but –well if it was the HST it moved pretty fast- it would keep disappearing-"

Riley was getting tired of the rambling so he cut him off. "Is there a _point_ to this story, or have you just come here to remind me of your incompetence soldier? I assigned you the task of finding Hostile 17 over six months ago, and you have yet to show the HST. And now you come here telling me that you _think_ you _may_ have found it, and when I ask you _where_ you think it is, you go into you're life story. GET TO THE POINT!" he yelled the last part.

Peters jumped at the abrupt change in tone. "I believe the HST is in that old hotel sir. The Hyperion; I believe it's called."

"And how did you find this out?" Riley asked, then sensing the younger man would start rambling again he added "and make it short Peters, I don't have all day."

"I was walking down the street with the temperature reader and I stopped outside the abandoned building. The reader had picked up movement at room temperature. For some reason there aren't many HST's in the area and its right around where I lost it in the sewers so I put two and two together."

"Good job Peters, I'll check it out once I've finished my paperwork." He said as he motioned for the younger man to leave. When he didn't run out of the room immediately Riley asked in a tone that clearly said 'get out now': "Is there something _else_ Peters?"

"Yes sir…" he hesitated a bit. "Well, you see… the reader… it picked up on two room temperature HST's in the building."

"You can go now." Riley said as he looked back at his paperwork. If the vampire Peters had found in the hotel was Spike then he must be either back to normal and living with someone, or another vampire was helping him. Well that wouldn't do. If Spike were being nursed back to health, then Riley would have no chance in making him pay for ruining his life. If Spike was strong, then he couldn't hurt him. And what if the other vampire he was living with was protective of him? He knew he couldn't win in a fight against a vampire; he wasn't strong enough. But who would help Spike? As far as he knew the vampire didn't have many friends that weren't in Sunnydale. He decided he would check it out this evening. For all he knew Spike wasn't really at the hotel, after all Peters was a blundering idiot.

Lorne had thought he heard two things simultaneously that did not make sense together. First he thought he heard a crash coming from upstairs. Then he also thought he heard a low buzzing sound. He couldn't figure out where it had come from, but before he had time to contemplate it further Angel came running down the stairs. "Come quick I need you. Its Spike!"


	17. Panic

Spike was huddled on the side of the bed closest to the window, trying to make himself as small as possible. Maybe if he hid here long enough, the creature that liked to hurt him would go away. He hadn't known how it had happened. One moment his pet had brought food, it tasted all right, but he liked the other blood better. Once he had finished drinking his body had begun to shake and he had passed out. When he had opened his eyes at first he thought his pet was holding him again. But he ended up looking right into the face of the creature that liked to hurt him. Had it hurt his pet? Where _was_ his pet? Had there been a pet? He started to panic. He didn't know if he had ever escaped from that place.

But he had to have escaped. He remembered living in the dark place for a while until he came here… where his pet had put him in a cage. Had the creature found a way to trick him? '_But the two smell different…'_ he thought as he pulled his legs closer to his chest. His pet had an older, more familiar scent. The creature's scent was fresher, newer. He didn't know how he knew this but he could tell that his pet and the creature were two different creatures. But then where was his pet? He hoped it wasn't someplace hurt… or dead. He held himself tighter once he heard the door open. This time the creature came back with another creature. Spike recognized it as the first creature he had seen when he had woken up in the room full of light. He did his best to keep quiet; maybe if he was quiet enough the creatures would go away.

"He's in the corner." Angel said as he and Lorne entered his bedroom. Lorne had walked over to look at Spike. He was huddled in the corner holding himself so tightly that his arms appeared whiter from the strain.

"Hey there buddy." He said as he attempted to get closer to Spike. He had crouched down and was only a foot away when he noticed the small vampires distress. He sighed. Spike was backed into a corner, shaking violently. He didn't want to scare him any more so he stood up and walked over to Angel. "So _what_ happened?" he finally asked.

"I don't know Lorne. I gave him the blood like you said."

"Uh-huh"

"And then he threw himself on the floor and started shaking."

"That explains the crash," the Host mumbled to himself.

"And then once he stopped, he took one look at me and ran to hide over there." He said while pointing to the corner where Spike was still shaking. "It seemed like he was having a panic attack. He looked at me like I had two heads!"

"Well I don't understand it Angel-pie, that was some high quality hocus pocus. It should have worked. I don't know what else to tel-" he was cut off by a strange sound coming from Spikes direction. Angel instantly recognized it as keening. He was momentarily frozen in place; it was the same sound that helped him realize that Spike was the victim.

"Come on," Angel said as he grabbed Lorne's arm. "Lets leave him alone." Lorne followed him out of the room, and watched as he closed the door. Angel led him downstairs. They sat in Angel's old office. He took a seat in his chair, and Lorne took a seat opposite him in a wooden chair. Angel let out a frustrated moan as his head fell into his hands on top of the table and he began to rub his temples with his thumbs as if he had a headache. "What went wrong?" he asked desperately. Lorne just shrugged in response. "I gave it to him, just like you said. I heated it up and watched him drink it all. I don't get it. What happened?"

"I don't know sweetie. I swear the doc was legit; he came highly recommended! There must be some other mo-jo at work here. That's the only explanation." He said as he stared at the top of Angel's head. It took a while, but eventually Angel released his head from his hands.

"Are you…" he started, paused for a second and then continued. "Are you telling me that A.R.F put a spell or something on Spike and that's why he's up there freaking out?"

"I don't know if that's exactly what they did, but I do know that there is something else going on here… look I have the anecdote with me. We could give it to him, and he'll probably go back to the way he was before." He said hopefully.

"You have an anecdote? Why didn't you tell me there _was_ an anecdote?"

"I got it in case I messed up on the translation and our boy up there did grow two heads. See I always got my bases covered." He smiled reassuringly. It quickly faded as he watched Angel mentally beat himself up. "What is it?" he asked.

"He won't let me any where near him!" he practically yelled as he stood up and paced the room. "How am I supposed to get him to drink it?"

"Uh… well you don't."

"What?"

"It's a pill Angel-heart. He'll need to swallow it."

"Swallow it? That's just great! How am I supposed to get him to do that Lorne?" he began flailing his arms around, as if trying to make a point.

"No idea. Hey! But when you do get it in him, call me. I'll be at the club." The Host said as he stood from his chair and began walking towards the door of the main entrance.

"You're not staying?" Angel asked.

"No can do buckaroo. I gotta set up for the club. We open in…" he paused to check his watch "an hour and a half" he made a face. "Geez I gotta get down there, we're breaking in a new bartender. I just can't seem to find someone who can make a decent sea breeze. And besides, you saw him up there, and you remember what happened the first time he saw me. Trust me, the fewer unrecognizable people the better. So here's the wonder drug." He gave Angel a large brown pill. "Now I really gotta go, I'll come back later this week."

Angel watched as Lorne left the building. Then he looked at the large pill in his hand. How was he going to get Spike to take it? His brain played out possible scenarios all the way back to his room. None of them ended well. By the time he had closed the door to his room and had found Spike (still huddled in the corner), he decided that there was only one way this would work. He grimaced. Spike wasn't going to like it.

Spike never took his eyes off of the creature that liked to hurt him as it approached. _'Need fight.'_ He thought as it came closer. He had decided that the creature would not hurt him again; it had already hurt him enough a long time ago. As soon as it came close he morphed into demon face. It had slowed its pace and had started making noises. The only thing he was able to pick out was 'Spike' that had been what his pet had called him… had this creature been watching him the whole time?

"Calm down Spike." Angel said as soon as he saw Spikes demon. _'He thinks he's under attack.'_ He thought sadly as he slowly approached the younger vampire. He decided he would approach him like he would a wounded animal; he avoided making eye contact and stretched his arm out to see if Spike would take the offering. He didn't.

Spike lunged at him with such force that he was knocked onto his back while trying to hold the smaller man off. They struggled for a bit. "Spike I'm just trying to help yo-ouch!" he yelled as Spike bit his arm. Now there was a steady stream of blood running down his arm. He prayed the younger vampire would forgive him for this some day; he lifted his knee and was relieved when it made contact with Spikes balls. The pain seemed to infuriate the smaller man. His eyes began to flash yellow. He raised his fist and hit Angel in the face, effectively breaking his nose.

Angel cried out in pain. Spike struck him a few more times, but each new blow had less and less force behind it. Angel assumed it was the strain the smaller man had put on his limbs while he was huddled in the corner. Spike apparently thought he had got the better of Angel because he saw an opening and attempted to run to the door. Angel hurried and grabbed Spikes leg, then forcefully pulled him back. Spike was now lying on his stomach, kicking frantically. Angel pinned the smaller mans arms down as he struggled franticly. Once Spike was positioned properly, he sat on him. Using all of his weight to make sure the smaller frame could not escape. "I swear Spike I'm just trying to help you." He grunted as Spike began to struggle harder. After a few minutes of Angel sitting on his back and his futile struggles becoming weaker and weaker, Spike suddenly stopped struggling. Angel had assumed he had fallen asleep, but then he heard soft noises coming from under him and realized that Spike was crying. "Oh don't cry." He begged. "Look just take this and hopefully you'll feel better." He said as he pulled the pill out of his pocket and forced it into Spike's mouth.

He flipped Spike over with one hand and made sure the pill was all the way down his throat. He was rewarded with the sound of Spike chocking. _'Well at least it went down, now how long do I need to wait before I find out if it worked?"_ He didn't have to wonder long, after two minutes the smaller vampire started shaking so violently that he was thrown across the room. He quickly pulled himself up and ran over to Spikes side. He had stopped shaking and was now whimpering on the floor.

Spike was confused when he woke up on the floor. One second he was fighting the creature. The creature had won and he was sure it was going to hurt him again. Either that or take him back to the place where it lived and hurt him there. Either way he was sure he was going to get hurt. The creature had forced him to the ground then shoved something large down his throat. Whatever it was it had made him choke. He didn't remember much after that. But now he was back on the floor and didn't know how he had gotten to this part of the room. He began to whimper; he didn't know if he would ever see his pet again, or if it was alive for that matter. How had the creature found him anyway?

"Spike…" he heard his pet say. He turned his head sharply to the sound of the voice. There he saw it. His pet was crouched next to him with a worried look on its face. Spike pounced on it and began licking its face enthusiastically. _'Pet's safe'_

"Okay, okay!" Angel yelled as he tried to pull Spike off of him. This wasn't the Spike he had originally wanted, but it was better than the one that was here a few minutes ago. He chuckled as the small vampire on top of him began to yawn. Angel didn't blame him, the panic attach he had suffered seemed to have taken a lot out of him. "Come on, let's get you into bed." He said as he gently shoved Spike off of him. The smaller vampire eagerly followed him into bed and never took his eyes off of him. Almost as if he were afraid that if he turned away, Angel wouldn't be there when he looked back.

Once in bed the younger vampire nuzzled into Angels side before falling asleep. He lay there watching the smaller man sleep in his arms. There seemed to be a look of relief on Spikes face, Angel wondered what exactly he had seen to scare him so badly. He brought a hand up to stroke the brown hair of Spikes head. "It's okay Spike." He whispered. "You're gonna be okay. And we're gonna find a way to get you back to normal I promise." He lay there for just watching Spike sleep and thinking. What kind of magic could A.R.F have used on him that would cause those kinds of side effects to other types of magic?

Riley sighed in frustration. Half of his students had come into his office to ask for help on the essay he assigned that wasn't due for two weeks. '_Overachievers_._'_ He thought disgustedly as he realized that he wouldn't be able to check out the hotel for a while. It would be a few days at the most. A small part of him was okay with it. From what Peters had assessed Spike didn't seem to be a flight risk. But a bigger part of him was agitated. He wanted to be sure it actually _was_ Spike so he could begin to strategize his revenge.

A/N: this will be the last chapter for about a week. I am going out of town and will not be able to update until next weekend. Thanks for reading so far.


	18. Explosions

Spike had woken up early; he looked over and found that his pet was still sleeping. He nudged it with the back of his hand a few times when it still didn't stir he kicked it once. Not hard, but just enough to get its attention. No luck. He was bored. He jumped off the bed and began to wander around the room, looking for anything that could distract him until his pet woke up and they could play. He went into the bathroom and began looking around for things to play with. He accidentally bumped into the paper that hung by the bowl of water. He looked at it and saw that it had gotten longer. _'Ooh'_ he thought as he corked his eyebrow up to one side, and then he slowly began pulling on the paper. He became fascinated by the way it got longer and longer. He began pulling faster and faster; soon the corner he was in was covered in paper. He jumped into the tub a trail of paper wrapped around his foot. He kicked it off, and then stood up. Noticing that the paper was still attached to him he kicked harder. Spike kicked so hard that he almost fell over the edge of the tub. He grabbed a handle to keep from falling, but then it moved and cold water began hitting his back. He yelped and fell over the edge and onto the bathroom floor. _'Ouch!'_ he thought. _'Room dangerous.' _he limped out of the bathroom and began looking for things to play with in the living room. Nothing worked. He was just about to join his pet in the bed when he noticed the door. There was nothing interesting about the door. He had seen it many times; he would often stare at it when his pet would leave when it was dark. But right now he wondered what was on the other side. He cocked his head to the side momentarily and then crouched closer. He reached his hand up and grabbed the knob. Nothing happened. Spike concentrated hard. How had his pet opened the door? He thought about it and then began turning his hand to the side. The door opened with a click. He let go of the handle and the door swung open. Spike smiled.

He was in the sewers following someone he didn't know. He couldn't really see the other mans face. Something about this felt so familiar. He knew these sewers; they weren't far from the hotel. _'It couldn't be!"_ Angel thought as he began to run in front of the other man. As soon as he was in front he recognized the military clothes. He froze; A.R.F was in the sewers. Angel watched as A.R.F climbed a latter and momentarily disappeared from view. He had to follow. He jumped up and quickly scaled the latter, and ended up in the alley outside of the hotel.

It was daytime. Angel panicked for a quick second then realized he wasn't bursting into flames, and calmed down. A.R.F appeared to be headed to the hotel. '_Oh no. Did he find out that Spike's there?' _The man in front of Angel suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned around. A huge wave of relief washed over Angel as he followed A.R.F back into the sewers, hopefully away from the hotel. Spike was safe (for now), but he wanted to know where the man was headed. He jumped back into the manhole. A.R.F seemed to be looking for something.He wandered farther down into the sewers and didn't stop until he found it.

Angel watched in horror as A.R.F stopped under a manhole that he knew well. It was the manhole that leads into the basement of the hotel. That's what he had been looking for. He hadn't wanted to enter the hotel from the main entrance because he would attract attention to himself; not many people walk around in military gear. A.R.F wanted to sneak in. _'I have to stop him'_ Angel thought as he lunged at the man and tried to tackle him. He wasn't completely surprised when he ran straight through the man. He gave a frustrated cry as he watched the man who had tortured Spike crawl into the hotel basement. Only one thought gave him peace and that was that Spike was safe in his room.

He followed him up into the basement and watched as the man looked around, and then began slowly climbing the stairs that lead to the kitchen. The man quickly pulled out a small gun from his back pocket and held it at the ready. Angel followed. A.R.F reached the door and slowly pulled it open with his unoccupied hand. What Angel saw once the door swung open had made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. There right in front of A.R.F was Spike.

Angel woke with a start. For a second he thought his heart had started beating again. A.R.F was in the hotel. And he was with Spike. _'That makes no sense because Spike is right here next to me…'_ he reached his arm over to where Spike had been earlier. _'Hold on… where's…'_ there was nothing to his side. He sat up and frantically searched the room. He heard the shower and wondered if Spike was taking one. _'But Spike doesn't know how to use the shower…'_ he thought as he continued to call his name and look around the room. Spike wasn't there, and then he noticed that the door was open. "Shit!" he yelled as he threw the covers off the bed and ran to the kitchen. Halfway down the stairs he heard Spike yelp. He ran faster, he nearly tripped over the last few steps. Once he made it into the kitchen Spike was once again huddled into a corner. There weren't many 'safe' places to hide, everywhere seemed to be somewhat exposed. He turned around to face the door to the basement. This was it; he was finally going to see who this A.R.F person was. He faced the door and was shocked by what he saw. Standing in front of him was the last person he had ever expected to see. Riley Finn. "Riley." He growled.

Riley seemed to be shocked as well, for a moment he was frozen in place. But then he turned around and ran back down the stairs. Angel followed. Riley didn't get far, he grabbed the smaller mans arm and began twisting one behind his back. The smaller man yelled out in pain. Angel twisted harder. "Riley Finn." He said as he leaned his head close to Riley's ear. "So you're A.R.F" it wasn't a question. _'A.R.F: Agent Riley Finn. I should have known.'_ He mentally berated himself. The military gear should have been a dead giveaway, but he had thought he had seen the last of Finn when Buffy was in college. What was he doing here in LA and why had he captured and tortured Spike? He needed answers and he needed them soon. He threw Riley into the cage and slammed the door shut, and then locked it effectively trapping him in the basement.

"Let me out of here!" he yelled.

"Not until you answer a few questions…" Angel paused. His vampire hearing had picked up whimpering. Spike. He left the basement and found the smaller vampire still huddled in the kitchen corner. He sighed as he scooped the smaller man in his arms and carried him back to the bedroom. He didn't want Spike to be anywhere near Finn. There was no telling what kind of effect the shock already had on him. Upon entering the bedroom Spikes body had gone limp. Angel laid him on top of the covers and then tried to cover him, but the smaller vampire quickly fled the bed and found refuge underneath it. He decided it would be best to leave him there. Angel was about to go back to the basement when the sound of running water reminded him that the shower was still on. He walked into the bathroom and saw all the toilet paper thrown around the room, and the floor was soaking wet. He turned off the shower and left the room (he'd deal with it later), he locked the door. Not because he thought Spike was a flight risk, but because it reassured him that Spike was safe from Finn.

"What are you doing here?" Angel asked as soon as he entered the basement.

"Currently… just hanging around." Riley said lazily.

"You know what I mean." Angel growled, his eyes flashing yellow. "What are you doing here in L.A?"

"Working." Riley said as he lazily leaned against the bars, hands folded behind his head.

"Oh you wanna be a wise-guy huh? Fine." Angel reached his hand through the bars and began to choke him. "What did you do to Spike, and why are you after him?"

Riley gagged. "Ch-ch- can't breathe!" he said while trying to take in breathes.

"What was that Riley? I couldn't hear you. Speak up a bit will you." He said mockingly. He loosened his grip a tiny bit.

"Can't breathe!" Riley said louder.

"Oh you can't breathe?" Angel asked. Riley shook his head frantically. "Do you want to?" he nodded his head in agreement. Angel squeezed tighter. "Then _start_ talking" he released Riley and he began to cough violently. Angel ignored him. "What are you doing in L.A? Last time I saw you, you were working for the Initiative in Sunnydale. Now Buffy told me it was destroyed, so what are you doing? Playing dress-up?"

Riley coughed for several more seconds before he finally began to talk. "A few years ago," he said in between gasps. "we relocated. We decided to have a base here because of all the extra normal activity that some law firm was involved in. I teach Demon Ethics and A History of Demons to all of the new recruits. I also train them to be good soldiers. Yes the Initiative in Sunnydale was destroyed, for a while I didn't know what to do so I decided to travel. I was in a rainforest in sou- " Angels growl cut him off.

"Get to the point Riley. I'm not getting any older, but I would like my answers _this_ century!"

"Well you want to know why I'm after Spike and I'm telling you all of the 'relevant' information. Can I continue please?" Angels nod was the only response he got. "_Like_ I was saying. I was in a rainforest in South America when I ran into Sam- my ex-wife. We hit it off and she liked that I hunt demons. We just clicked, I mean she could kick some major ass (demon, human, it didn't matter)… not as good as Buffy, but hey, not everyone can be a slayer." He looked up at Angel and noticed the impatient look on his face. "Anyway, we went back to Sunnydale for a bit, then we left, and we ended up in Africa. One of my hostile tracking devices started beeping, so I look at the monitor and it says 'Hostile 17'…" Riley trailed off.

Angel knew that the initiative had called Spike 'Hostile 17' so he wasn't surprised when Finn mentioned it. There was one thing that bothered him. "What were you doing in Africa?"

"Research. We had heard of a demon that had some extraordinary powers. So we went to look for it."

"And what happened?"

"We never found it. Sam and I started to fight a lot. I guess seeing that Spike was in Africa reminded me of how much I loved Buffy and of how he stole her from me. I may have mentioned it a few too many times and Sam got fed up and one day- a few months later- she said she wanted a divorce. It was then that I realized Spike had ruined my life. So I vowed revenge. All I wanted to do was ruin his life the way he had ruined mine… I also wanted to hurt him, just to make _myself_ feel better about everything he had took from me. So I spent a year filling out divorce papers and researching everything I could about programming chips. I had it all planed out. I was going to go back to Sunnydale, capture Spike and chip him again with a special chip that would make him obey my every command. I was going to make him my slave." Angel growled again.

For a moment, things made sense. In his dream he had seen Finn type into a program 'Obey A.R.F'. So the kid had learned how to make computer programs. "And what did you do to Spike?" he asked again.

"I'm getting there!" Riley nearly yelled.

"Well _get _there faster!"

Riley took a deep breath. "After I had perfected the program I had returned to California. When I made it to Sunnydale all that was left was a crater. Buffy told me what had happened. How Spike had sacrificed himself to close the hell-mouth. I was glad she was okay, but I was _pissed_ Spike had died. I really wanted to make him pay for ruining my life."

"But Spike survived." Angel said.

"Yeah, I didn't find that out until later. HQ said they wanted a base in L.A because of all this activity from some law firm-"

"Wolfram and Heart."

"I guess so. Well I told them that I wanted to be in charge, I was tired of blindly following orders and not being allowed to ask questions… not that I knew I had any questions back in Sunnydale. Back then I just did whatever I was told. They agreed, and the L.A Branch of the Initiative was borne. I took on some new recruits and have been training them ever since. Well one day a little over a year ago I guess, I got this report about a vigilante with bleached blond hair and a leather coat. I had to check it out."

Angel nodded his head. He remembered getting those calls when he thought that the Powers had chosen Spike to be their champion. It turned out to be a hoax. Lindsey had been using Spike to pull one over on the Senior Partners.

"So I go to this alley and sure enough there he is in the flesh. Staking a vampire and insulting a woman in an alley. I couldn't believe it; Buffy told me he had burned up. I was going to take him that night, but whoever he was with mentioned something about you and remembering how you had kicked my ass the last time we had seen each other I didn't want a repeat performance."

"Then what?" Angel asked. "You obviously didn't give up."

"No I needed to get him alone. But I hung back for a while. Knowing Spike it was only a matter of time before I would be able to catch him. Well a few months later there was a huge surge of paranormal activity coming from the law firm. We suited up to go check it out but by the time we had gotten there all that was left was another crater. We didn't find any survivors. That is until one of my men said they thought they saw moving smoke. I figured it wouldn't hurt to check it out. So we did, my hostile meter didn't read anything… in retrospect I shouldn't have expected it to I knew he wasn't chipped anymore, and he's the only hostile ever to escape. Whatever. We found him trying to break into a building…"

Riley continued to talk but Angel had tuned him out. _'That's why his scent just stopped at the door. He never made it inside the building.' _Trying to escape the sun was regular Spike behavior. What Angel didn't understand was why or how Spike had begun acting feral. There was something Riley wasn't telling him.

"What did you do to him?"

"Um… well… we chipped him again, but I switched the behavior modification chip for the one I designed. Then I had him moved to my room, and I chained him-" he was cut off by Angel finishing his sentence.

"To the wall inside of a cage in your room."

"H-how did you know about that?"

"You'll find I know a lot Riley. I know you chained him to the wall, I know you ran hot pokers through him, I know you raped him, and I know you starved him so much that he had to drink his own blood." He looked straight at Riley and noticed the human had gotten pale. "Yeah I know a lot. What I don't know is what you did to Spike to get him to act like a wounded animal. What the hell did you do to Spike? And what kind of magic did you use on him?" Angel demanded.

"Look I don't know why he's like that. He was like that when I had him, and I never used any magic on him." Riley said defensively. Angel reaching into the cage again and chocking him took him aback. Then the vampire lifted him off of the ground until his feet were dangling.

Angel leaned in close. "You're lying." He said.

"I swear; I didn't put a spell on him or anything. I don't know why he's like that." He struggled to get out as Angel began crushing his windpipe. Angel only let Riley go when he heard an explosion coming from outside. Riley crumpled to the floor as Angel ran back upstairs to see what had happened. As he made it to the landing he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Then he heard another explosion, followed by a group of people screaming. He ran up to his bedroom to make sure Spike was okay.

"Spike!" he called as he entered the room. He found Spike still under the bed if it was at all possible he was shaking harder then he was earlier. Angel walked over to the window to see what was going on outside. He pulled back the blinds and looked out over the city. He heard yet another explosion and then the room was illuminated by a bright red light. It was the 4th of July and there were people down there shooting off firecrackers.

Angel drew the blinds again, and then walked over to the bed to try and coax Spike out from under it. "Come on Spike, its okay, no one is going to hurt you here." The younger vampire didn't budge. Angel reached in and grabbed him around his waste. Spike struggled to get away but Angel grabbed him tighter. "Come on Spike, I'm too big to go in after you!" he grunted as he successfully pulled the smaller vampire out from under the bed. Spike struggled for a while, and then turned and tried to burry himself in Angels shoulder. "You're okay Spike." Angel soothed as he stroked his hand up and down Spike's back.

He lay down on the bed with Spike on top of him. Angel made sure the smaller mans body was completely covered by the blanket before he turned them both on their sides and continued stroking Spikes arm in a reassuring fashion. They lay like that for a long time. Angel would have thought Spike had fallen asleep but every time the fireworks went off he would shake violently. It was well into 3 AM when the fireworks began to die down. Spike was finally starting to relax. But it seemed that the people in the park had saved the biggest fireworks for last. The explosions were so loud that they shook the hotel. Spike jerked violently, and then bolted upright. Angel followed him into a sitting position, and then looked down at him; the younger vampire looked like he was ready to jump out of his skin.

"Spike, it's okay. It's okay; it's almost over. Shh." He tried to soothe, but the smaller vampire began to dry heave. Angel pulled him in closer. "Calm down Spike, calm down." Spike suddenly stilled, and then vomited all over Angel's shirt. Angel groaned; he didn't know what to do. He couldn't yell because it wasn't Spike's fault, and the smaller man already had a terrified look on his face. Spike tried to run, but ended up tangling himself in the sheets. Angel tried to grab him, which only resulted in both him and Spike being covered in vomit. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up." He untangled Spike from the sheets and carried him into the bathroom. While he was filling the tub, Spike began to heave again. He quickly positioned the smaller vampire over the toilet and returned to the tub.

Once the tub was full, he placed his hand in the water to check the temperature. It was a little too hot for Angels liking, but he knew Spike would like it. He made sure Spike was done vomiting before lifting him up and placing him into the tub. Once inside Spike visibly relaxed, but Angel decided he wanted Spike to totally relax so that he would fall asleep. He grabbed the lavender scented body wash Cordelia had left in his bathroom years ago. She told him it would help him chill out; he never used it. Now he was squeezing a good amount into a washcloth and cleaning the vomit off of Spikes chest. It seemed to work; the smell had a calming effect on him and that combined with the water seemed to be lulling Spike to sleep. By the time Angel had rinsed him off he was already leaning his back against the edge of the tub with his head drooping onto his chest.

Angel smiled as he stood and watched Spike for a while. Then he removed his shirt, drained the tub, and carried Spike back into the bedroom. The smaller vampire was fast asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Angel crawled in after him, and put an arm protectively around his childes waist. He had a feeling he should go back to the basement and interrogate Finn some more. But he knew it would be useless; the kid didn't know anything about Spikes condition. He had done his best to traumatize him (and it had worked), but he had nothing to do with Spikes strange behavior. _'There's_ _gotta be something I'm missing here.'_ He thought as he looked back down at the sleeping form in his arms. Again he noticed the bump on top of his head. Spike still didn't let him touch it, maybe that had something to do with his behavior. He decided he would get the information out of Finn first thing in the morning.


	19. The Next Morning

The next morning, Angel walked into the hotel basement with a bucket full of steaming hot water. Riley was still asleep on the floor inside the cage. _'Good._' he thought viciously as he raised the bucket and threw the contents on top of the sleeping man. Riley yelped, and then scrambled to the other end of the cage. His clothes were soaked and steam was rolling off of him in waves. "What the HELL!" he yelled as he quickly removed his burning hot clothes.

"Morning." Angel said in a mock sweet voice. "Sleep well?" he asked while lazily leaning against the bars of the cage, his smile was worthy of Angelus. He watched as angry red welts began forming on Riley's skin, and the steam rolled off him in waves.

"What do you want?" Riley said between gasps. His body was still in shock and he was shaking violently.

" Answers."

"I… told you… every…thing the… other day." He managed weakly.

"Yeah. Funny thing, about that: I think you're lying." He paused for a second. "Well you're either lying or there's something you're not telling me. Which one is it?"

"I already told you what happened."

"Again, I don't believe you. But hey! I've got an idea… why don't I have some demon make a truth potion?" he said, his voice upbeat. "Yeah, I'll have one of my demon buddies make a truth potion and then you won't have to worry about weather or not you're telling me the truth."

"I told you EVERYTHING!" Riley yelled. He watched from the floor as Angel opened the cage and walked in. The vampire seemed to hover around him for a minute before he quickly grabbed him by the neck and hoisted him up. Riley's feet dangled limply while his brain tried to sort out what had happened. But before he had a chance, he was distracted by a sharp pain in his back as Angel threw him against the back wall and held him there.

Angels face was less than an inch away from Riley's and he growled dangerously. "Oh yeah, you told me some pathetic story about how your obsession with Spike cost you you're relationship with Buffy. Then you went on to talk about how you're a loser with no life. And I believed all of that last night. But what you didn't tell me is what you actually did to Spike to make him act this way. And you're gonna stay here until you do." He began lifting Riley's right arm and attaching it to a manacle in the corner. He did the same with his left arm and then continued. "You're actually going to stay here until Spike decides what he wants to do with you. But until then I'm in charge." He gave the man a vicious smile and then left the cage and began searching the basement. After a few minutes he found what he was looking for. A poker, much like the one he had seen Riley use on Spike in many of his visions. He waved it around while whistling a tune, making sure the man had not only seen it but also recognized what it was. "I'm going to go upstairs and heat this up, but don't worry I'll be right back." He jogged up the stairs, leaving Riley hanging in the cage.

Once in the kitchen he looked at the pizza oven and fired it up. He moved to put the poker in the oven, but then paused. He decided he wasn't going to run Riley through with the hot pokers just yet. The pure demon part of him wanted to take a knife and make several shallow cuts at first so it would be painful but he would still be conscious, and then when Riley would be least expecting it, he would play doctor. He wanted to cut him open and wrap the human's intestines around his throat.

As much as he wanted to, he couldn't kill Riley just yet. That- he decided- was for Spike, as soon as he was back to normal. So for now he would have to settle for running the man through with hot pokers (but missing any vital organs), and slicing and dicing to his dead hearts content. With a slight sigh of regret he turned off the pizza oven. Part of him was excited; it had been a while since he tortured anyone. He quickly found a knife and trotted back downstairs.

"Change of plans!" he announced as he bounced down the stairs. Riley looked at him warily, a look a relief momentarily flashed through his eyes when he noticed Angel wasn't carrying the poker. Then a look of dread crept onto his face as Angel pulled out a knife. "We're going to work our way _up_ to hot pokers." He said as he lazily played with the knife, swinging it between his thumb and index finger. Then he began tossing it up and catching it with one hand. "I figured we'd start with this, and then… you know… move up to bigger things." He said as he waked up to the cage. With his free hand he unlocked the door and then stepped in not bothering to close it. Riley wasn't going anywhere.

"You gonna stab me?" Riley asked.

"Maybe; if you beg nicely enough. I mean I _could_ stab you, as long as I don't get any vital organs, you'll live long enough for Spike to decide what to do with you. But I think," he said while stepping closer to Riley and pressing the blade on his chest. "I'm just going to make shallow _cuts_," he emphasized the word by making a diagonal line down Riley's chest "for a few hours and see what I feel like doing after that… you know I could strip your flesh off…" he tore his eyes off of the line of blood dropping from the mans chest and pooling onto the floor. He looked Finn straight in the eyes and then moved the knife over to his right bicep.

"OH GOD, NO! NO!" Riley yelled as Angel dug the knife into his flesh and started using the knife to strip the flesh off the muscle.

He ignored Riley's screams as he continued. Once it was removed, he held up the seven inch strip of flesh and waved it in front of the mans face. "One little piece at a time." He finished while giggling. Riley was panting heavily; Angel ignored it and made a phone call.

"_But, I don't understand… why are you…"_

_Those eyes pleaded with him. He hated seeing the look of pain there. What he hated more was the fact that he had put the look there. But this wasn't going to work. Who were they fooling? This wasn't real, and he knew it. They both knew it… didn't they? _

"_I'm sorry sweetie, but I can't keep doing this, it's not real!"_

_Shock and denial now. He hated how expressive those eyes were, and how they'd gotten so close that he could practically read every thought now. _

"_What do you mean 'its not real'? Of course its-"_

_He held up a hand to stop the outburst. "I know it is. It's real for you. But lets be honest here sweet-heart, you don't want me, you want-"_

_RING…RING the piercing sound of a telephone ringing somewhere in the distance was disturbing his train of thought._

"_What the…" He didn't remember there being a phone here…_

_RING_

He groggily reached for the phone on the nightstand, and then paused. Did he really want to pick it up? He had woken up from the throws of a bad memory. He was currently nursing a headache; courtesy of the hangover he was hosting. And where had the hangover come from? It probably had slipped its way into one of the 'X' amounts of… whatever the hell it was he had been drinking last night. No, he could just let it ring. Even though it set his nerves on edge like someone was holding a dentists drill to his ear and wouldn't release the trigger. Yup, he could just lie there and let it ring. But that damn phone kept insisting.

_RING…RING_

He cursed, and then picked up the receiver. "Hello" he said sleepily.

"Hey, I need a favor." Angel. Of course it was Angel.

"Not so loud Angel-pie… what do you need?"

"I need you to have someone make me a truth potion…and something that regenerates skin…" Lorne groaned. He sounded giddy… a little too giddy.

" Uh… Ok. So that's one truth potion and one… what do you need a skin regenerating potion for?" he asked.

"Oh, well I found the guy who had Spike, and I'm in the basement stripping off his skin until he tells me what I want to know." Lorne listened more closely, he could definitely hear whimpering and groaning in the background.

"Wait he's there at the hotel?" he practically shouted.

"Yeah, he's here. He scared the crap out of Spike yesterday, and now he's hiding in my room while I take care of this jerk!"

"You need me to do anything? Other than the potions I mean"

"Yeah, could you make the calls and then come over here and watch Spike tonight? I feel like I need to go out and… kill something." Lorne winced at the malice in the voice, or maybe Angel's tone had further aggravated his hangover.

"Uh, sure I'll make the call for the truth potion… might take a week, I know this guy in the-"

"That's fine. What about the stuff for the skin?"

"Well I have some mojo here that regenerates skin cells, comes in handy when dealing with harpies… what time do you need me over there?" he asked casually. _'Please let me sleep off this hangover.'_

There was silence on the other end of the line, with the exception of the low moaning in the background. He was just about to ask if Angel was still there when he suddenly got a reply. "Come over as soon as possible." Then the line went dead.

"Of course." Lorne moaned as he fell back into bed and slammed the pillow back over his head. He could spare five minutes.

By the time Lorne showed up to the hotel late that afternoon, Angel had stripped the flesh off of the upper half of Riley's body. He had shoved an old sock into Riley's mouth to muffle the screaming. When that did not work, he had grabbed duck tape and wrapped it around the man's mouth.

Lorne stood shocked in the basement doorway. The upper half of the mans body was eerily familiar. A few years ago he had heard stories of a witch who had stripped a man of his skin before incinerating him. He shuddered involuntarily at the memory. He had picked up a reading on that kind of power that time Willow had come to help restore Angel's soul. At the sight of Angel merrily stripping the young mans flesh and humming a tune, he briefly wondered if he was looking at Angel, or Angelus. He cleared his throat to announce his presence.

Angel took the knife and rinsed it off in a nearby bucket full of pinkish water. He grabbed a blood soaked towel from the floor and dried off the blade. "Hey Lorne, got the stuff?" he asked as he turned around and smiled widely at the demon.

"Well I see now why you needed to re-grow skin… here." He descended the stairs and handed Angel the large blue vile full of green liquid. "What you do is pour a drop on a patch of the damaged skin… in this case I guess it would be the _missing_ skin." He frowned at the pile of flesh strips by the bucket of water. "And the rest of the area will automatically grow back."

Angel nodded his head in understanding. "Spikes locked in my room, the keys are in the lobby."

"Oh, alright… so this is A.R.F?" Lorne asked.

"Yeah. This is Riley Finn… Agent Riley Finn, he used to date my ex-girlfriend, he works for a military group called the Initiative. When they were based in Sunnydale, he put a chip in Spikes head so he couldn't harm humans, and last year he kidnapped Spike and tortured him for six months."

"Oh… so you guys have a… history" He felt like there was more he could say, but he thought that he should be with Spike right now. "Okay, well I'm gonna let you two keep catching up. Do me a favor; slap him around a bit for me. Hard. I'm going up to see Spike… let me know when you get ready to leave okay."

"No problem." Angel said as Lorne made his way back up the stairs.


End file.
